Why are 5e PCs so powerful

[Skrum]

I'm a very experienced DM, and even after planning hundreds of encounters, I still feel like I don't quite have a bead on encounter difficulty - and I *always* miss in one direction. The PC's roflstomp my beautiful encounter that I spent significant time on.

Obviously, after awhile, I caught on the fact that I was always underestimating them, and started scaling up. But still. I miss low quite often, despite throwing some mean stuff. At least, yah know, what I think is mean stuff.

But it just got me thinking. How the heck are the PCs so powerful.

Some general observations -
hit points: heavily in favor of monsters. Bosses and other tough monsters will often have 3-5x the hit points of any given PC, and the collective Monster Squad will have hundreds more hit points than the collective PC team.
armor class/defenses: PC favored. Monster AC is usually in the 15-18 range, PCs are often 20+ w/ additional reactions, resistances, etc.
damage: this one gets knotty. Damage rolls are monster-favored, but monsters also have lower attack bonuses and PC's often have nova/burst buttons of one sort or another. Effective damage is PC favored, on a per action basis
action econ: starts monster favored, but then swings towards PCs as monster after monster gets mowed down

X-factor: monsters have crazy abilities that aren't balanced around uses per day or any other consideration that governs PC abilities
X-factor: the PCs are each controlled by a human player than can optimize their own actions and decisions, while the entire Monster Squad is controlled by a single person, the DM, who is also managing the game

I've played enough to know, abstractly at least, that I can throw basically anything at all at the PCs and they will find a way to win. But in the process of planning an encounter, I almost always arrive at a point where I think "this, this is surely too much, I'll scale it back just a little." And then more often than not, the players just win. Not without fanfare, but they win and in retrospective there's no real way it could've played out any other way.

I don't remember having this problem in 3e.

[Trask]

Monsters in 5e are weak and/or PC power has grown exponentially in proportion to threats. CR appropriate encounters are designed to be "speedbumps" and not serious challenges. The game was balanced around the idea that your players might spend all their ASI's on feats like Keen Mind, Actor, Savage Attacker, or just increase the "wrong" abilities. It was designed to be low lethality even for people who aren't tabletop nerds. Once in contact with tabletop nerds, you can have a level 11 party destroy Balors with ease.

[stoutstien]

Why do you see this as a problem?

[Dr.Samurai]

Why do you see this as a problem?
Why does he see struggling to challenge his players as a problem?

[JonBeowulf]

Why do you see this as a problem?

Because hero-work is supposed to be dangerous and it felt that way in previous editions. Now, everyone starts out as exceptional at level 1 and is a stinking superhero by level 4. It's incredibly difficult to create encounters that feel threatening without the risk of one bad roll resulting in a TPK. 5e PCs are too durable... until they aren't. Then it's an avalanche of bad vibes and disappointment.

I'm running my group through a BECMI campaign right now and they were astonished at how fragile they started out. They finally got their heads around the fact that adventuring is a job most people don't want due to the risk of death and changed their play style. I'm curious to see if this will impact our next 5e campaign.

I certainly hope so.

[Amnestic]

Double every monster's damage.

Sounds like a joke, kind of is, might just work.

[Sigreid]

I think the popular taste has moved away from the high PC mortality rate that used to be expected.

[Pex]

As opposed to what, PCs dying every combat? Do you need a quota of how many PCs must die for you to be satisfied? It's not your job as DM to kill the PCs. The bad guys want to. You shouldn't. PC death can happen, but that is not the goal.

[Kane0]

(1) hit points: heavily in favor of monsters. Bosses and other tough monsters will often have 3-5x the hit points of any given PC, and the collective Monster Squad will have hundreds more hit points than the collective PC team.

(2) armor class/defenses: PC favored. Monster AC is usually in the 15-18 range, PCs are often 20+ w/ additional reactions, resistances, etc.

(3) damage: this one gets knotty. Damage rolls are monster-favored, but monsters also have lower attack bonuses and PC's often have nova/burst buttons of one sort or another. Effective damage is PC favored, on a per action basis
action econ: starts monster favored, but then swings towards PCs as monster after monster gets mowed down

(4) X-factor: monsters have crazy abilities that aren't balanced around uses per day or any other consideration that governs PC abilities

(5) X-factor: the PCs are each controlled by a human player than can optimize their own actions and decisions, while the entire Monster Squad is controlled by a single person, the DM, who is also managing the game


(1) and (4) are frequently counterbalanced by (2), and monsters generally lacking the spike damage of (3) and also dealing with some form of tactical handicap of (5) is likely what you're seeing.

How often have you put together a creature team to sync with each other and focus down PCs one by one? In my experience DMs tend not to focus or lockdown too hard so as to let the players continue playing, so all the PCs stay up acting and contributing more than NPCs who don't get the same luxury.
Add on top of that the attrition minigame and PCs can usually pull out as much as they need to get through an encounter where the monsters generally cannot, then make a decision to fall back when they are actually running dry so they can maintain that edge.

Do you see the same pattern in the last few fights before a long rest compared to the first few?


Double every monster's damage.
Sounds like a joke, kind of is, might just work.
You can play with the health and damage too. Instead of using averages you can assume minimum or maximum HP/damage rolls.
So a stock standard MM ogre could range from 28 (min) to 59 (average) to 91 (max) HP and 6 (min) to 13 (average) to 20 (max) damage per swing.

[Dr.Samurai]

Folks... Skrum never once mentions PC death rate in his post. He's talking about how easily they defeat his encounters, despite all of the thought he puts into challenging them.

It doesn't sound like to me that he's thirsting for blood, but I reserve the right to be wrong of course.

[Kane0]

Oh yeah, Skrum also has an interesting table in regards to short resting. That's probably required context.

[Theodoxus]

I had that problem. Then I started throwing 4th Ed monsters at my party without modification (other than updating saving throws and attacks that asked for a save). My players were bewildered why things had ACs in the upper 20s and strange resistances. They still won, but it took a long time and they had to be far more tactically minded; generating advantage, forcing disadvantage, etc.

I did tone down their abilities, modifying the monsters closer to 5E standards, but with still fun and unique abilities my players hadn't encountered before. It was fun for me, mostly fun for them (one guy's dice hated him - never rolling above a 10, which made it very hard for him to hit anything) - but he was a Twilight Cleric so I had no sympathy (and he kept the team alive and well even if his Guiding Bolts always did squat.)

Do I recommend? Not really. But I do recommend stealing some of the powers of those critters, just for something new for your players to deal with. Just tone them to appropriate levels.

[stoutstien]

Why does he see struggling to challenge his players as a problem?

Because how deadly an encounter is rarely lines up to how challenging it is to begin with.

At the lowest end, 5e is high fantasy built around the idea that tactical inept players will eventually figure out how to achieve a win state and hopefully by doing *cool* stuff in the process.

Unless you go waaaayy outside what the system was set up for as far as expected damage out/in you just are better off by adding in alternative win states to coincide with the normal face hitting. It's not kill the ogres before they kill you as much as kill the orges before they kill frank the one legged traveling merchant.

[Brookshw]

I strongly encourage you to pick up Tome of Bears by Kobold Press. The monsters tend to be strong with more interesting abilities, and, considering it's not the same monsters recycled for 50 years, they'll probably surprise your players.

[stoutstien]

Because hero-work is supposed to be dangerous and it felt that way in previous editions. Now, everyone starts out as exceptional at level 1 and is a stinking superhero by level 4. It's incredibly difficult to create encounters that feel threatening without the risk of one bad roll resulting in a TPK. 5e PCs are too durable... until they aren't. Then it's an avalanche of bad vibes and disappointment.

I'm running my group through a BECMI campaign right now and they were astonished at how fragile they started out. They finally got their heads around the fact that adventuring is a job most people don't want due to the risk of death and changed their play style. I'm curious to see if this will impact our next 5e campaign.

I certainly hope so.

Most players like the fact the can just do cool things and still likely win without leading to a death spiral so I don't see much reason to push it past that. I have one group that does like to face multiple deadly +++ encounters but it more of working around them rather than trying to brute force everything. They recently made the switch to WWN and are happier for it.

[Mastikator]

A trick I employ sometimes is to have monster reinforcements just around the corner, and if I realize that the players are struggling then those reinforcements don't reinforce, or I scale them down, but if the players are crushing it then then I can scale up the reinforcements. By having monsters call out for reinforcements and then having those reinforcements arrive, I reference another part of the dungeon. Referencing other parts of the world makes the world feel more interconnected.

The second trick is to not let the players get long rests, a small encounter is likely to drain some resources so I can whittle the PCs down. At the start they'll feel like superheroes, by the end they are squeezing blood out of stone to win, making their victory feel all the better.

[Skrum]

Re: trying to kill players

No I'm not trying to kill players, but put the fear of the god in 'em? Yeah, just a little. Make it feel earned? Absolutely.

When I first started 5e, I thought the death saving rules were too forgiving (again, coming from 3e that just had -10 and you're capital d dead). Yoyo healing, we all know the weird meta around being at 0 in 5e. But after playing for 2.5 years, I think the problem is deeper than that - player success is all but inevitable, and if it's not, it's because the encounter is so comically overtuned it's not fun.

Frankly, I don't think "protect the NPC/get the mcguffan" changes it at all. At a certain point, the encounter has to present difficult mechanics and it just feels like there's about a hair's width between "PCs will def win, it's just a matter of time" and "rocks fall."

Does this work fine - great even - for narrative-based games that's focused on a hero's journey to eventual King-hood, God-hood, whatever? Absolutely. But a credible chance of failure would be nice sometimes.

[Rerem115]

Personally, I've always found a few things that turn an encounter from routine to terrifying, even if they don't seem to dramatically tip the scales.

1) Environmental hazards. Maybe you take a trivial amount of damage each round from extreme temperatures, or the monster in the water likes to drag people in, or the driving winds cut vision to nearly nothing, or maybe the contours of the terrain split the party. Fair warning, these can deceptively lethal with how they lead to focus-fire and extra death saves, but there's no denying how much of a nail-biter they can make things.

2) Ticking clocks. The longer you draw out the fight, the harder it gets—or it threatens to get harder. One minute until the bomb goes off, or the room fills with water, or a new wave breaks in. Sure, you can make the Athletics check to hold the door against the reinforcements, or the Wisdom save to control the artifact, but there's no guarantee you'll make it every turn, and they're still coming in from the windows!

3) Multiple threats. A big bruiser is scary, but the party can play around that. Adding another, or smaller-but-still-concerning threats can turn each round into desperate calculus—do I try and focus the biggest threat, or do I trust my team to do that while I keep our retreat clear?

[stoutstien]

Re: trying to kill players

No I'm not trying to kill players, but put the fear of the god in 'em? Yeah, just a little. Make it feel earned? Absolutely.

When I first started 5e, I thought the death saving rules were too forgiving (again, coming from 3e that just had -10 and you're capital d dead). Yoyo healing, we all know the weird meta around being at 0 in 5e. But after playing for 2.5 years, I think the problem is deeper than that - player success is all but inevitable, and if it's not, it's because the encounter is so comically overtuned it's not fun.

Frankly, I don't think "protect the NPC/get the mcguffan" changes it at all. At a certain point, the encounter has to present difficult mechanics and it just feels like there's about a hair's width between "PCs will def win, it's just a matter of time" and "rocks fall."

Does this work fine - great even - for narrative-based games that's focused on a hero's journey to eventual King-hood, God-hood, whatever? Absolutely. But a credible chance of failure would be nice sometimes.

What content are you using?

[JackPhoenix]

If you always think your encounters are too much and you scale them down, and then wonder why the PCs beat the encounters easily, stop scaling them down?

[JNAProductions]

Have you talked to your players about this?
Make sure you're all on the same page when it comes to this. And who knows, if they feel similarly, they might have some more personalized ideas to help achieve it!

[Dalinar]

From the perspective of the player, in a game where PC death is relatively rare, it becomes easier to justify spending time on characterization. If Timmy the Wizard IV falls into a spike pit and dies, and I roll up Timmy the Wizard V next session, the storytelling possibilities related to Timmy IV and his three predecessors are kinda moot. Might want to be careful what you wish for.

My DM figured out a couple adventures in that he had a way easier time balancing things by throwing out the resting timetable and doing gritty-esque resting, providing very few opportunities to regain resources and making it take a lot of inworld time. The danger of an encounter is in part dependent on how drained the PCs are, after all.

Other than a particular mishap very early on, plus one horror adventure where we were explicitly told to expect character deaths, and one or two cases of Revivify coming in handy, we haven't actually had any PC deaths yet. But wow have we cut it close basically every time! I suspect he tunes his encounters under the assumption that we'll run out of resources and TPK at the boss, then writes in resources (consumables, magic items, deus ex machina, etc) based on how badly we're getting beat up along the way. But maybe that's just me overthinking it.

Encounter balance doesn't happen in a vacuum.

[Unoriginal]

I've played enough to know, abstractly at least, that I can throw basically anything at all at the PCs and they will find a way to win. But in the process of planning an encounter, I almost always arrive at a point where I think "this, this is surely too much, I'll scale it back just a little." And then more often than not, the players just win. Not without fanfare, but they win and in retrospective there's no real way it could've played out any other way.

Let's say we're talking about lvl 5 PCs. What kind of CR and how many enemies are you usually throwing at them, in one encounter?

[Atranen]

I strongly encourage you to pick up Tome of Bears by Kobold Press. The monsters tend to be strong with more interesting abilities, and, considering it's not the same monsters recycled for 50 years, they'll probably surprise your players.

I assume you mean Tome of Beasts? Although I would pay good money for a Tome of Bears :smallbiggrin:


When I first started 5e, I thought the death saving rules were too forgiving (again, coming from 3e that just had -10 and you're capital d dead). Yoyo healing, we all know the weird meta around being at 0 in 5e. But after playing for 2.5 years, I think the problem is deeper than that - player success is all but inevitable, and if it's not, it's because the encounter is so comically overtuned it's not fun.

Yeah, the yoyo healing and such is one of the biggest, continual problems with 5e. I wish there was a good way to fix it, but really the design goal is not to challenge players tactically. It's to make them look cool while they dunk on the monsters. Unfortunate, but true :smallannoyed:

[Brookshw]

I assume you mean Tome of Beasts? Although I would pay good money for a Tome of Bears :smallbiggrin:


Hah! Yes, autocorrect, but I also would gladly buy a Tome of Bears!


Yeah, the yoyo healing and such is one of the biggest, continual problems with 5e. I wish there was a good way to fix it 3 failed saves per day rather than per times going down. Long term wounds per time gone down if you want to push it, makes them recovery by medicine checks (so it's finally useful), time, or the regenerate spell only.

[J-H]

My solutions:
1. Go to zero, get a level of exhaustion.
2. Don't worry about how the PCs will pass something. That's on them.
3. Cap player HP bloat. Once they hit level 10, they get 1, 2, or 3 hp per level, as in 2e / Baldur's Gate 2 (which is what I'm running). A level 20 bear-bearian can effectively have 700+ hit points thanks to resistances.
4. Proper # of encounters per day, including keeping time pressure on so they can't just short rest with no consequences some of the time.

[Spriteless]

I always make sure to have lots of monsters. That way nova focus fire doesn't end the encounter. I also tend to run 1 encoutner/long rest, but I use more monsters than is a balanced encounter. If one Remoraz is a good encounter according to the book, I run 3. I don't go shopping for something above their level.

[da newt]

As a DM I too have had plenty of encounters where I thought the party would struggle much more than they did (especially w/ higher level full casters and all the class/subclass/race/feat/magic item/spell options available), but I also know that if I want to I can easily create a scenario where team bad guy rag-dolls the snot out of at least a couple of the PCs if I concentrate fire on a few.

It's not that hard to go high and right, but it is tough to get to the sweet spot of everyone is worried MAYBE this time the good guys won't win, but then they just pull it off in the end - unless you play with super flexible hp and damage and rolls behind the screen (and I don't like that style).

PC's are supposed to survive ~98% of encounters. This is an important design feature. If the PC's only win 90% of the time, it's an absolute slog / PC revolving door - conversely if the PCs win 99.9% of the time, it's unsatisfyingly cheap (although some folks prefer a more snacks and puns type of game).

IMO the best way to keep the Players hungry / make them feel like they earned it is to play the BBEG as a survivalist - he does terrible things, but when team good guy comes to get him he knows job #1 is to live to fight another day - so when it looks like things aren't going his way, he GTFO so he can rebuild and come back again later. A nemesis who is smart enough not to stand a fight to the death (like an idiot) is so much more gripping.

[Kane0]

1. Go to zero, get a level of exhaustion.

I like the UA version of exhaustion for this specifically.



3. Cap player HP bloat.

I put this in another thread recently, but:

Level 1 HP: Class die + Con Score
Level 2+ HP: Class die
Rolling for hit die during rests is unchanged (Class die + Con bonus)

End result is slightly more HP in tier 1, about the same in tier 2, notably less in tiers 3 and 4.

[Gurgeh]

Yeah, that's pretty neat. I like the way it takes a lot of the "compulsory" investment out of constitution. Also increases the relative durability gap between martial classes and spellcasters.

[Fable Wright]

My previous GM made 5e challenging for the party. It may be a your-table thing. A few factors that PCs use that can be turned against them:


PCs have burst resources, and managing those can be a pain point. Our party, at level 13, fought a full-fat lich with Meteor Swarm at the end of a dungeon. The enemies in the dungeon were thawing out of slowed time and had very high attack/AC and just kept coming, meaning that bursting enemies down was infeasible and we were slowly being drained. At the end, the lich hit us with that surprise meteor swarm and won the counterspell war, and had enough damage in general that we needed to burst him down fast. That sure as **** put the fear of god in us, knowing that he had Finger of Death prepared (but didn't win the counter war on casting it). Enemies coming at a trickle at stats that would normally be extremely hard to deal with puts pressure on the party without being overwhelming, and it's easy to tune.
PCs can abuse harassing actions. My Shepherd Druid has done degenerate things by summoning groups of Quicklings to attack from beyond enemy engagement range and retreat before enemies can do anything, and are hard to hit. Against PCs, I've used them as harrassing units that didn't deal damage, but stole things and were a hazard for the fight that made them feel kinda powerless. Enemies that force you to make or set up terrain in order to interact with them, despite glass cannon stats, can make for engaging and memorable Tucker's Kobolds. I've had GMs that, in corridors with many rooms, have archer enemies that would walk out, fire their bows at the PCs, and walk back behind full cover. Advancing up a narrow corridor blocked by meatshields while dealing with harrassing fire from archers is brutal.
PCs can abuse crowd control. When GMing, you can get a surprising amount of mileage from a large tactical map, and then sticking the players down on one side of it, put archers on the other, and the archers have a Druid casting Plant Growth. After the PC frontline charges forward, use Plant Growth to separate them from support, and then outflank the support people with cavalry and the fact that melee can't return to their aid. It doesn't shut down turns, but it does force people to use lesser backup options (the barbarian needing to rely on using bows, or else being completely unable to engage, can be a memorable experience.)
PCs tend to act in their own self-preservation. Generally, when they give ground, enemies will follow them, and they can abuse that to lead to encirclements. Enemy monsters usually, when run by the GM, don't give ground. If monsters retreat instead of rushing the party, forcing them to either burn resources chasing them down and be pulled out of position if the monsters rally; or let the survivors flee, costing the PCs their loot pinata of gear, potentially alerting friends, or ruining strategic objectives. I've seen, in Pathfinder 2e, players complain when enemies get the Fleeing condition and are forced to evac the area; that forced retreat can make their job harder. So just have enemies retreat more. Counterintuitively, this can make things harder.


You really want to put the fear of god in them? Give them a puzzle boss immune to damage, whose solution they don't have on hand. A fighting retreat against an implacable foe can be really engaging, because you will lose a war of attrition against a boss you can't damage and need to go back and get revenge on, or one that you need to lure into a pit or other environmental hazard that existed previously. You need to keep baiting the monster with the things it wants (PC health) so it won't just retreat, but you need to survive constant attacks and mitigate its offense as you bring it into position.

A fun thing that I like to do when introducing new players to my table is give them a gauntlet mission. There's snipers holed up in a tower, and some hard cover in the surrounding area that the defenders haven't had a chance to clear, and some dogs they use to harass with. If you end your turn out in the open, you'll be a pincushion in no time from concentrated fire. If you end behind cover, those shots are less concentrated and disadvantaged. People giving counter-fire have the dog handlers send the dogs after them, specifically. It forces the players to think about positioning, it's not a threat they can solve with one fireball, and it rapidly turned a group of comic store casuals I hadn't met before into tactically engaged players hopping from cover to cover because the enemy won't give them a fair fight. Enemy damage was individually low, but sustained over the course of a fight? It really added up quickly.

[Skrum]

This thread got a little detailed (no worries), but what I'm really asking is WHY are PCs so powerful. Like they seem effective beyond their stats and abilities.

[Fable Wright]

It's because full casters and system experience.

You have an all-martial party and they're going to struggle against magic-using encounters that don't favor them.

If it's a multi-target DPS check, casters can do it with Fireball.
If they need breathing room against a number of enemies, banishment or CC like Entangle/Plant Growth/sleet storm.
You need durability? Polymorph.
You need mass volume attacks? Animate Dead or Summon Animals.

Knowing how to recognize the situation where these spells have maximum impact and having this diversity of options on hand does the trick.

If the PC cleric sees an opportunity for Spirit Guardian abuse, they will take it, but has other gimmicks to adapt to any other encounter.

5e monsters are built with abusable weaknesses (ogres not really having ranged weapons, Beholders needing line of sight, casters can be Silenced if you can grapple, etc). PCs are given various tools to hammer on those weaknesses. Monsters are not given the tools to tailor themselves towards specific party compositions. So the party can continually adapt to punk on the weaknesses as they catch them.

That's why 5e PCs are so powerful. Because the monsters were quite literally made to lose if the PCs bring specific tools, and full casters can bring bags of all the tools.

[CTurbo]

I have personally not found balancing combat to be very difficult. My favorite thing to do is just add more enemies if the encounter is shaping up to be too easy and it's not supposed to.

1. I don't like to just add more hit points because that gets boring.
2. I'm not afraid to fudge rolls at times.
3. I DO raise AC a little at times if I feel like it's needed.
4. I'm not afraid to give enemies some fun spells to use. Especially humanoids.
5. I rarely use solo bosses. When I do, I either give them a away to escape or have them call for backup on the spot. If they escape, they come back later on MUCH stronger.
6. I like making and using characters as enemies/bosses.
7. If they're having TOO easy of a time, don't let them rest. I'm not above interrupting a Long Rest with a surprise encounter.

I order to keep combat interesting, it needs to be challenging MOST of the time. There are times when the players just get a good kick out of curb stomping an encounter though. The people that have played with me the longest know that I will throw really easy encounters at them as well as clearly impossible encounters at them. I'm never out to kill any of my player's characters, but I don't think they should go 8 or 9 encounters in a row without having a player at least roll a death saving throw or 2. There has to be an element of danger. Rolling initiative should mean something.

[tKUUNK]

As a DM I too have had plenty of encounters where I thought the party would struggle much more than they did (especially w/ higher level full casters and all the class/subclass/race/feat/magic item/spell options available), but I also know that if I want to I can easily create a scenario where team bad guy rag-dolls the snot out of at least a couple of the PCs if I concentrate fire on a few.

It's not that hard to go high and right, but it is tough to get to the sweet spot of everyone is worried MAYBE this time the good guys won't win, but then they just pull it off in the end - unless you play with super flexible hp and damage and rolls behind the screen (and I don't like that style).

PC's are supposed to survive ~98% of encounters. This is an important design feature. If the PC's only win 90% of the time, it's an absolute slog / PC revolving door - conversely if the PCs win 99.9% of the time, it's unsatisfyingly cheap (although some folks prefer a more snacks and puns type of game).

IMO the best way to keep the Players hungry / make them feel like they earned it is to play the BBEG as a survivalist - he does terrible things, but when team good guy comes to get him he knows job #1 is to live to fight another day - so when it looks like things aren't going his way, he GTFO so he can rebuild and come back again later. A nemesis who is smart enough not to stand a fight to the death (like an idiot) is so much more gripping.

A lot of good points in this. ^

I find 5e to be kinda swingy compared with 3.5e (never played 4e so no idea). To balance encounters, two things have helped me:

1) action economy is huge in 5e. Having balanced numbers of opponents goes a long way toward balancing the encounter.

2) As others have said here, the players aren't pulling punches against the monsters. The monsters usually shouldn't pull punches either. Target the character who is weakest first. Kick them when they're down. Go hard.

Also there's the fact that the PCs have had encounter after encounter after encounter over the course of a campaign to perfect their tactics as a group. They've evolved to fight as a unit. Don't underestimate the effect of this.

[J-H]

This thread got a little detailed (no worries), but what I'm really asking is WHY are PCs so powerful. Like they seem effective beyond their stats and abilities.
1. No class, and very few subclasses, are actually bad. In 3.5, a party of 4 20th level fighters walk into an epic dragon's lair, and it laughs at them. Unless they have a Shock Trooper ubercharger, they don't have any way to burst it down. In 5e, a party of 4 20th level fighters walk into an epic dragon's lair. If it's dumb enough to ever get in melee, it's going to eat somewhere between 64 and 72 attacks in two rounds with no iterative attack penalty being applied to any attacks. Unless it has more hit points than the Tarrasque, or an AC in excess of 30, it's dead.
1a. Martial characters are actually the best at single-target damage in this version of D&D. Sure, a wizard can temporarily do more damage per round with Disintegrate or Finger of Death, if the save is failed, but only a couple of times per day.

2. Characters can be okay at things they aren't optimized for. If they get grabbed by a giant constrictor snake, they still have a d20 to roll against its d20+8, and they have a decent chance to escape.

3. Grappling, shoving, and climbing don't require a lot of investment to work.

4. Almost everyone has good action economy options, rather than those being limited to the Quickened Nightstick Schism'd whatever. This makes all PCs more effective, and makes life harder for solo monsters.

5. No iterative attacks. No 5' steps. Individual attack damage seems a bit lower than 3.5, so taking an OA isn't that big of a deal. Outside of specific circumstances, combat is more mobile.

6. Some monster abilities require set-up to work, like the banshee's wail or the vampire having to land a grapple or charm before it can bite. Petrification requires 3 failed saves to take effect, as do some diseases. Instant death or crippling is much less common.

7. Re-save on end of turn. Has anyone kept a PC paralyzed, stunned, etc. for more than 2 turns very often? I haven't. This works in the favor of monsters as well, but the monsters die faster.

8. Quite a few classes (artificer, fighter, monk, paladin, etc.) can boost saving throws pretty high. A 14th level party can tank 3 fireballs and barely notice it. A 20th level paladin with one feat doesn't even need to roll Concentration unless he takes 30 or more damage from a single hit.

9. I was going to say monster damage hasn't kept up, but I tried to prove it and found myself wrong.
A 3.5 balor hits with:
+1 vorpal longsword +31/+26/+21/+16 melee (2d6+13/19-20) and +1 flaming whip +30/+25 melee (1d4+6 plus 1d6 fire plus entangle)
If we assume only the last iterative misses, that's 3 hits for 20 damage and 2 hits for 12 damage = 84 DPR.

A 5e balor hits with:
2 longsword attacks at +14 for 6d8+8 (35x2 = 70), and 1 whip for 2d6+8 (15) = 85 DPR.

I think the 3.5 balor has a higher chance to hit unless a PC is loaded with +AC items, where the 5e balor may miss a bit more?

[Dr.Samurai]

My solutions:
1. Go to zero, get a level of exhaustion.
2. Don't worry about how the PCs will pass something. That's on them.
3. Cap player HP bloat. Once they hit level 10, they get 1, 2, or 3 hp per level, as in 2e / Baldur's Gate 2 (which is what I'm running). A level 20 bear-bearian can effectively have 700+ hit points thanks to resistances.
4. Proper # of encounters per day, including keeping time pressure on so they can't just short rest with no consequences some of the time.
I can attest to this. The OPENING SCENE in one of our one shots was almost a TPK and J-H was like "hang in there guys, you'll figure it out, or not" lol.

But seriously... it works. Exhaustion from dropping to 0 forces more caution. After that opening scene where we barely survived, half of the party had Disadvantage on Ability Checks for the rest of the game because of the Exhaustion, and no one wanted to drop to 0 again.

@Skrum, I know the conversation went in a different direction, but if you're looking to take anything else away from here, definitely worry less about going too hard on the PCs. Next time you feel like pulling back, don't, and see what happens. (Take with a grain of salt, you're a veteran DM so I don't want to condescend to you.)

[Witty Username]

Let's say we're talking about lvl 5 PCs. What kind of CR and how many enemies are you usually throwing at them, in one encounter?

So, at least for me, I have found these as doable:
1 CR 5 per PC, my group is 5 PCs, so 5 CR 5 monsters
The fought a single CR 13 monster and won, that was a trip
Past that 3 CR 2 monsters, again per PC, that was in town during a downtime effect so the were each ambushed by 3 monsters alone.

CR 9 seems to be a good number for a single monster, that tends to not last long though but they do have attack lines that can give pause.

Goblins are hardly a challenge, but they are alot of fun still, I tend to use them in multiples of 4, about 12-16 is a good number, doesn't last long though

Oh and Thanos, Build from Tulok the Barbarian, Half-Orc Level 20 champion fighter with GWM. Indomitable swapped for Legendary Resistance for speed of play. CR unknown.

--
PCs are powerful, because monsters are not dangerous and encounter rules are very forgiving in both the DMG and Xanathar's. also D&D encounter design doesn't really account for tactics much at all. I have more or less abandoned 5e's encounter guidance, beyond trying to keep it somewhat around Deadly if I want the party to Kill it.
A few of these up top were me giving encounters they would find memorable, and I had preparations for if they didn't succeed (with have proved unnecessary).

[tokek]

PC's are supposed to survive ~98% of encounters. This is an important design feature. If the PC's only win 90% of the time, it's an absolute slog / PC revolving door - conversely if the PCs win 99.9% of the time, it's unsatisfyingly cheap (although some folks prefer a more snacks and puns type of game).
.

This is the key consideration - you have to decide how lethal you want it to be. You can go old school with 10% lethality but even back in the day I got tired of constantly rolling up new characters and barely even gave them names sometimes. I would never run anything like that in the modern game.

I probably aim for 98-99% survival rates but 95% win rates. Retreat or negotiation are options in my games and happen more often than character death - and exhaustion of resources over multiple encounters is what gets the players to that point. Not one single mega-deadly encounter because those are mechanically far too swingy.

I don’t know how many encounters OP is running per adventuring day but I would suspect not enough as that’s by far the most common cause of indestructible character syndrome in 5e.

[Ignimortis]

9. I was going to say monster damage hasn't kept up, but I tried to prove it and found myself wrong.
A 3.5 balor hits with:
+1 vorpal longsword +31/+26/+21/+16 melee (2d6+13/19-20) and +1 flaming whip +30/+25 melee (1d4+6 plus 1d6 fire plus entangle)
If we assume only the last iterative misses, that's 3 hits for 20 damage and 2 hits for 12 damage = 84 DPR.

A 5e balor hits with:
2 longsword attacks at +14 for 6d8+8 (35x2 = 70), and 1 whip for 2d6+8 (15) = 85 DPR.

I think the 3.5 balor has a higher chance to hit unless a PC is loaded with +AC items, where the 5e balor may miss a bit more?

That's usually in reverse. At +31, against a typical level 20 PC in 3.5 (not even to any extent optimized, just keeping up with the big six, which the game outright expects you to have at that point), they're gonna be facing something along the lines of 37 AC (10+9 (full plate)+5 (enh bonus)+5 (defl bonus)+5 (NA bonus)+3 (DEX bonus, surely you're using a mithral plate and not other inferior materials?). No dodge bonuses, no animated shield, nothing. So even the first iterative misses on a 5 or less, and then it goes downhill. Balor's real threat is that they're packing a whole ton of special abilities, not that it tears through melee combatants like paper. Someone with a more DEX-focused build or magic might have even better AC without much issue, to the point that even the first iterative hits maybe on a 15+.

Meanwhile, a 5e plate wielder (likeliest to be in melee with the balor) has...21, maybe 22 AC without a shield build. That's assuming +3 Full Plate, which is honestly far from guaranteed and might not be a thing at your table, and Defense style, which not everyone can pick up. So they get hit on a 7+, maybe 8+ every single time. If their AC is worse (and for many PCs, it is), they get hit even more often.

[Unoriginal]

If you always think your encounters are too much and you scale them down, and then wonder why the PCs beat the encounters easily, stop scaling them down?

Honestly, that sounds like a good idea to try.

Maybe have the PCs take part in a non-lethal arena competition, so you can calibrate successive encounters,?

[Schwann145]

Gonna borrow BG3 difficulty levels for this:

AD&D 2nd Edition is like playing on Tactician difficulty. It's hard. You'll probably die early on if you're not quite careful, and you'll get tougher as you level up but not so much that you never get to stop being careful.

3.X/PF1 Edition is like playing on Balanced difficulty. You're a lot better than 2e but the monsters also get better over time. You're much less likely to die but you still have to take adventuring seriously.

5th Edition is like playing on Explorer difficulty. All the monsters are the weakest they've ever been and all the classes are the strongest they've ever been (out of the gate, at least). This edition is designed to do the work for you, ensuring that if you play as expected you'll never lose a fight and you'll coast right through the story, with difficulty that is moderate at worst, and easy most of the time.

[J-H]

The sweet spot is not where the PCs almost die - it's where they think they almost died.

[stoutstien]

The sweet spot is not where the PCs almost die - it's where they think they almost died.

Yeah 5e combat is basically professional wrestling where the NPCs are the heels.
Even if they do when a fight it's always a short-lived victory because the good guys are going to find a way to come back around and get that belt back.

[Unoriginal]

This thread got a little detailed (no worries), but what I'm really asking is WHY are PCs so powerful. Like they seem effective beyond their stats and abilities.

"Powerful" is a relative term.

You say PCs are powerful because they deal with monsters and challenge with ease (or at least, without risk of death), but we can't answer WHY your PCs are powerful unless we know what kind of monsters and challenges they face.

For example: I used to watch a livestreaming game group, and there was a campaign where they had a pretty powerful party, except for one thing: no one had any AoE ability.

They managed to handle small groups of decent enemies as well as strong individual monsters more than fine, and if somewhat bigger groups of weaker enemies were more difficult they still weren't that much of a problem.

Then at lvl 6-7-ish they were in the middle of a goblin community, talking with the goblin boss, and they ended up killing the boss.

Cue everyone in the goblin community who could fight attacking them in a frenzy, plus the boss's two (or maybe three) bugbear bodyguards.

None of them died, but they came close to TPK simply because there was so many enemies at once, even if they could kill several goblins a turn. Only reason they survived was because the Bard managed to convince the goblins the bugbears should also be dealt with right now.

[Sigreid]

As opposed to what, PCs dying every combat? Do you need a quota of how many PCs must die for you to be satisfied? It's not your job as DM to kill the PCs. The bad guys want to. You shouldn't. PC death can happen, but that is not the goal.
When I started playing, the chance to make it to the next level wad lower. I'm not saying its better or worse, just different.

[Skrum]

The sweet spot is not where the PCs almost die - it's where they think they almost died.

This is a good point, and one I probably lose track of. Plenty of fights have been memorable and the players give a collective *whew* when it's all done. It's not like EVERY encounter I run is a pushover. It just happens more often than I'd like.

[da newt]

A dungeon crawl where every bad guy / creature stays in it's room is pretty easy - the party can dictate the pace of encounters, rests, retreats, and plan ambushes etc.

A dungeon crawl where the bad guys / creatures actively move about, are drawn to the noise of battle / reinforce their allies, retreat and advance tactically, actively hunt for prey, and repel intruders like they are defending their home and loved ones is a much different beast.

If team bad guys goes on the offensive - starts dictating where/when encounters occur - keeps the party engaged / moving so they cannot rest and recoup all their resources - it makes a huge difference.


Why are PC's so powerful?

5e's rules for resource replenishment (hp, spell slots, class features, magic item recharges, etc) for the PCs are ridiculously generous.

Why do PC's need 3 death saving throw failures to die, when team bad guy goes to insta death at 0 hp?
- How hard is it for a PC to fail 3 death saves? It's a 45% to fail any one roll, you need to be at 0 hp at the start of your turn to make each roll, you need 3 fails before you get 3 passes (or one nat 20), and any healing or stabilization stops this process. Someone clever can do the math, but even if nobody heals a downed PC their chances of 3 fails before 3 passes or a nat 20 has got to be like 25%.
- Maybe change your table's rules so bad guys use the same rules as the good guys OR adopt the suggested 'every time you drop to 0 hp you gain 1 level of exhaustion' OR change the META of team bad guy so they all know PCs need to be attacked when they are down in order to keep them down so they prioritize attacking the unconscious PCs.

A party of PCs has SOOO many tools in their combined tool kit (racial abilities, class abilities, subclass abilities, feats, spells, magic items, etc) and most Players know all of the things they can do with all of those options and have been practicing fighting this one PC for many encounters.

Most parties are well balanced and have at least one PC who is good at filling every major niche. Most parties have a couple full casters, at least one healer, probably a paladin w/ a saving throw aura, AOEs, control, summons, and probably counter spell.

Most parties have crazy bank accounts to buy stuff like healing potions, mounts, plate armor, etc AND a plethora of magic items (often at least 10x more magic items vs team bad guys - imagine if every foe was kitted out like every PC).


It's not fair or equitable (by design).

[Lalliman]

This isn't really something you can implement during a campaign, but outright removing death saving throws and having characters just die at 0 hit points will help your problem a lot.

The benefit of this is not that more characters will die, which would generally be a bad thing. The benefit is that it will take far less for a fight to be dangerous. As is, a fight has to end with half the party unconscious to feel like a close call. With this one change, it will be a close call if even one person drops to low HP.

[Amnestic]

Why do PC's need 3 death saving throw failures to die, when team bad guy goes to insta death at 0 hp?

Strictly...they don't have to. The PHB's section on death saves talks about it.


Monsters and Death
Most DMs have a monster die the instant it drops to 0 hit points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws.

Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rules as player characters

(also the fact that this is in the PHB not the DMG tripped me up when I went looking for the quote)

Personally, I'll give NPCs death saves in two situations usually. One is when they've got healing available (yo-yo healing works for NPCs just as much as PCs!) and the second is, indeed, when they're 'notable' or 'named' characters. Zombies 1 through 6 might not get (un)death saves, but Necromancy Steve usually will.

It's rare they actually get to stand up again from a nat 20, but sometimes it eats an extra attack or two to put them down for good, which in turn can mean more time for other creatures to do stuff.

For the sake of expedition on encounters I don't generally bother with a solid 80-90% of NPCs, but there's really nothing stopping a DM from saying at the start of a campaign "Every monster/NPC follows the same death save rules as players - you should act accordingly" and playing it out like that. Chances are it'll add an extra round, maybe two, to each fight, and have a slight increase in resources expended (be it health or features) in turn. Might be worth it, might not.

[KorvinStarmast]

If a creature makes three death saves, they end up stable but unconscious for 1d4 hours.

The party can let them lie, or polish them off, if the DM wants to add that sort of feel to the game.
For certain encounters, I do precisely that for all of the enemies, and for other (most) encounters I don't.
Why? (1) convenience and (2) pace of play.

Most bosses and their major henchmen, though, get a death save routine as soon as they drop to 0 HP.
In quite a few cases the PCs want to talk to them or capture them, in other cases they want to dispose of them.

It depends.

The suggestion for 'drop to 0 HP get a level of exhaustion' is a decent one if the DM wants to raise the stakes.

[Keravath]

I think one reason that parties might seem difficult to challenge is because the DM doesn't want to use the tactics that would allow the monsters to win.

Intelligent opponents should do the following:
- focus fire, particularly on spell casters - ignore the fighter standing in front since they are hard to hit and only really damage one opponent at a time. They don't typically have AoE or crowd control. The fighter only gets one reaction. After they have taken an op attack, the rest of the opponents run by him to attack the vulnerable targets.

- make sure the enemies are dead - yo-yo healing happens all the time, a healing word spell gets an opponent back on their feet at 100% of its offensive capability (perhaps a game design issue but out of scope for this discussion). A creature that is at 0 hit points, making death saves, can be killed by a creature within 5' that hits it twice. An attack within 5' of an unconscious defender has both advantage to hit and if it does hit, it is a critical hit. Critical hits cause 2 failed death saves. Two hits on an unconscious target within 5' kills it and makes sure it will not re-enter this combat. PCs then have to choose whether to attack opponents or try to get their team mate back on their feet before an opponent can kill them - and they will not be able to succeed a lot of the time when opponents have Multiattack.

PCs use both of the above tactics all the time (in part because DMs often do not have monsters roll death saves so they are automatically considered dead at zero hit points).

- make intelligent use of terrain and environmental hazards to increase their chances for success

- strategic retreat - in a situation where the battle has gone against them and there is no compelling reason to fight to the death, opponents should leave. They can plan a follow up with better odds and appropriate tactics now that they are more familiar with the capabilities of the party.

PCs rarely use strategic retreats, mostly because the players operate under an implicit assumption that DMs are supplying encounters that are appropriately scaled to their level. If the DM sets expectations that this will not be the case, which may require a TPK for some folks to understand that the dangers in the world are NOT being adjusted for the party, then perhaps more players might choose to run away sooner.

-----

Finally, intelligent opponents realize that they may not know what might attack them. They might be protecting something or someone. In the D&D world this means having melee, ranged and magical forces and defences arrayed around whatever they are protecting. Very often it seems, DMs offer up a mostly melee force without the proper breadth of creatures/counters to some of the more common tactics used by adventuring parties.

[Kane0]

This is a good point, and one I probably lose track of. Plenty of fights have been memorable and the players give a collective *whew* when it's all done. It's not like EVERY encounter I run is a pushover. It just happens more often than I'd like.

If you're getting in more than three fights per long rest you will want at least some of them to not be nailbiters, if only for expediency and variety.

[Trask]

This thread got a little detailed (no worries), but what I'm really asking is WHY are PCs so powerful. Like they seem effective beyond their stats and abilities.

I think the best answer to this is one that has been touched on already, if not explicitly stated, the Death and Dying rules for PCs. 3 death saving throws is very generous, given all the ways for PCs to be healed and/or stabilized during the course of a fight, the action economy expenditure necessary for DM's to finish them off, combined with a natural reluctance for DM's to attack unconscious characters. In all the very tough, nailbiting encounters I've had ever had on either side of the screen, PC's went down and came up multiple times and were generally really hard to actually finish off. If we use common optimization logic here, the dead condition is the best condition to impose upon an enemy. That logic goes both ways, but its much harder for a DM to do that than a PC, and in general THAT IS A GOOD THING because PCs face many, many combat encounters during their careers. But maybe there's an argument to be made that its a little TOO hard to do, or at least that the game is structured in an annoying way.

In an ideal world, perhaps death for all creatures, NPC and PC alike, would be at 0, but PC strength is calibrated such that to reach 0 HP some serious tactical blunders or supremely bad luck is in play. One could also embrace the fantastical nature of D&D and make resurrection a common service offered by NPC's, instead of a quest-type ordeal that many DM's prefer. That way death at 0 HP, and high-lethality games in general, are much more palatable. Arguably that is what old school D&D was. High lethality but the rules and implied setting seem to suggest that resurrection was a service provided commonly.

[Unoriginal]

I think the 3.5 balor has a higher chance to hit unless a PC is loaded with +AC items, where the 5e balor may miss a bit more?


That's usually in reverse. At +31, against a typical level 20 PC in 3.5 (not even to any extent optimized, just keeping up with the big six, which the game outright expects you to have at that point), they're gonna be facing something along the lines of 37 AC (10+9 (full plate)+5 (enh bonus)+5 (defl bonus)+5 (NA bonus)+3 (DEX bonus, surely you're using a mithral plate and not other inferior materials?). No dodge bonuses, no animated shield, nothing. So even the first iterative misses on a 5 or less, and then it goes downhill. Balor's real threat is that they're packing a whole ton of special abilities, not that it tears through melee combatants like paper. Someone with a more DEX-focused build or magic might have even better AC without much issue, to the point that even the first iterative hits maybe on a 15+.

Meanwhile, a 5e plate wielder (likeliest to be in melee with the balor) has...21, maybe 22 AC without a shield build. That's assuming +3 Full Plate, which is honestly far from guaranteed and might not be a thing at your table, and Defense style, which not everyone can pick up. So they get hit on a 7+, maybe 8+ every single time. If their AC is worse (and for many PCs, it is), they get hit even more often.

The 3.5 Balor's main advantage when comparing those attack routines is that they're doing twice as many attacks than their 5e counterpart.

The secondary advantage is that they have a vorpal sword, and with 4 sword attacks that means 20% chances of triggering the "off with their head" effect each time they do a full attack thingy (although the efficiency of the effect is hindered by having to confirm the crit).

I think that illustrates the difference between 3.5 fights and 5e fights.

The 3.5 Balor is technically scarier... because they have a magic weapon with a fiddly ability that just insta-kill most PCs if they crit then confirm the crit.

Outside of that, the PCs will have more than enough AC and other protections to not be impressed by the Balor's melee combat, despite the fact that the numbers are way bigger and the attacks are more numerous than in 5e.

[DruidAlanon]

This thread got a little detailed (no worries), but what I'm really asking is WHY are PCs so powerful. Like they seem effective beyond their stats and abilities.

Due to the fact that a PC team is usually more than the sum of its components.

e.g. a team that combines twilight sanctuary, aura of protection, pass without trace, gift of alacrity, conjure animals, convergent future, arcane abeyance, etc can pull off amazing combinations that one may not be even able to foresee. This depends on the leve of optimisation & tactical sophistication of the group, but such synergies can be very potent. The best way I have found to compensate for these, is to increase significantly the number of encounters in a day, so players will always need to hold back, preserve spell slots and class abilities, etc.

[Dork_Forge]

For the question itself: Because everything is meant to be a viable option, so PCs in general have a pretty high floor with a much higher ceiling, coupled with very forgiving rest and death rules.

I could suggest a bunch of my homebrew rules for increasing difficulty, but that won't help you learn to balance encounters. So what's an example of an encounter the stomped and the party/context that it happened with?

[Devils_Advocate]

So, designing truly difficult challenges is a truly difficult challenge? How meta. But insofar as it's unpleasant to have to regularly struggle to achieve your desired result, it seems rather unkind to wish to inflict that misfortune on your players. (Unless this a known psychological difference between you and them. It's not like I know you and your group.)

If, on the other hand, you enjoy routine difficulty, and are seeking to share it with your group that they too may understand that Losing Is Fun, then perhaps it's time to stop pulling your punches and embrace a significant chance of a TPK. For while a truly difficult challenge can have low stakes, the lower the reward to effort ratio, the less the character motivation to bother trying in the first place, as a rule.

Which is... part of what make things like retreat and surrender happen, I suppose. So having those as clear options could help there, unless the players insist on fighting to the death as a point of pride. Having enemies sometimes take such measures helps to establish that they're things that can happen, and also just makes sense unless everyone the protagonists fight are themselves supposed to have some sort of nigh-suicidal Warrior Honor Code.


So far as death and healing go... If magical healing is rare in the setting, as it presumably is if the PCs generally don't have to worry about their enemies using it, then it makes sense that many of the foes that the player characters encounter will prioritize attacking still-conscious enemies. Until, of course, they see one of the PCs heal an ally back up from incapacitation. At that point, the proverbial cat is rather out of the proverbial bag.

So it's a "Fool me twice, shame on me" sort of thing.

[Slipjig]

I suspect it's because PCs are on a constant escalator od power creep, while MM critters are frozen in amber at their 2014 power levels.
Question for those of you who have been playing since the edition started: did tables have a harder time with Deadly+++ encounters when 5e came out?

Even if you aren't a hard-core optimizer, if you are leafing through any book published since Tasha's and think, "Hey, that looks kinda cool", odds are your character is going to be significantly stronger than a PHB-only PC.

[KorvinStarmast]

I suspect it's because PCs are on a constant escalator od power creep, while MM critters are frozen in amber at their 2014 power levels. Not really. Volo's are a bit tougher in a lot of cases.

Question for those of you who have been playing since the edition started: did tables have a harder time with Deadly+++ encounters when 5e came out? Depends on the table. With a tactically minded group who had 5 PCs, no. For a casual group with 3 PCs? Yes.

Even if you aren't a hard-core optimizer, if you are leafing through any book published since Tasha's and think, "Hey, that looks kinda cool", odds are your character is going to be significantly stronger than a PHB-only PC. Yes. If you play PHB only there ability to mitigate risk is reduced.

[stoutstien]

Question for those of you who have been playing since the edition started: has the game been like this since the PHB was published, or is Skrum's problem caused by PC power creep (while a MM Ogre is exactly the same in 2023 as he was in 2014).

Even if you aren't a hard-core optimizer, if you are leafing through any book published since Tasha's and think, "Hey, that looks kinda cool", odds are your character is going to be significantly stronger than a PHB-only PC.

Well even in PHB only no optional rules games it's not difficult to double or triple the warning point in the DMG where a party might start straining. Adding in optional rules can increase this quite a bit if the players are clever.

Content didn't really start getting crazy as far a sheer output values going up until after XGtE but since them they practically gave up and it's gone pretty nuts but like always they missed a combo here or added something that lacked testing there that have rocketed output to easily be 10X the PHB only party.

[Trask]

Question for those of you who have been playing since the edition started: has the game been like this since the PHB was published, or is Skrum's problem caused by PC power creep (while a MM Ogre is exactly the same in 2023 as he was in 2014).

Even if you aren't a hard-core optimizer, if you are leafing through any book published since Tasha's and think, "Hey, that looks kinda cool", odds are your character is going to be significantly stronger than a PHB-only PC.

I am one of those people, and I would so yes there is significant power creep, not to say that there aren't PHB options which remain strong, but they're mostly the feats. I would say that the power creep is within the subclasses, especially in Tasha's. The subclasses are almost entirely oriented towards combat, with few "ribbons" (and people wonder why combat is the only thing the game focuses on) and often having a tenuous at best connection with their theme, which seems to be mostly an excuse for the powers.

IMO 5e is one of those games where I'm just happy with core, and I think its the best balanced too, not just balanced by numbers but more well-rounded. The classes don't all have hyperfeatures, there's a lot of situational or "legacy" types of features, things that add "flavor" or "fluff" or whatever slightly condescending adjectives you want to use.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am one of those people, and I would so yes there is significant power creep, not to say that there aren't PHB options which remain strong, but they're mostly the feats. I would say that the power creep is within the subclasses, especially in Tasha's. The subclasses are almost entirely oriented towards combat, with few "ribbons" (and people wonder why combat is the only thing the game focuses on) and often having a tenuous at best connection with their theme, which seems to be mostly an excuse for the powers.

IMO 5e is one of those games where I'm just happy with core, and I think its the best balanced too, not just balanced by numbers but more well-rounded. The classes don't all have hyperfeatures, there's a lot of situational or "legacy" types of features, things that add "flavor" or "fluff" or whatever slightly condescending adjectives you want to use.

For player options, I basically agree. I mean, there are some nice QoL features added later. But mostly not.

------

On the main topic, one key thing is that the DMG's recommendations are designed for new DMs playing "stock" with new players. Not for DMs playing with experienced players who are playing with variant options. A few specific ones:

1) multiclassing and other character-level optimization. While "stock" characters have a much higher floor than in previous editions, there's still a significant delta between floor and ceiling. Especially when variant options (feats and multiclassing specifically) are on the board and players are thinking in mechanical terms.
2) commonality and especially non-random allocation of magic items, especially combat-effective ones. Having multiple significant items, especially ones that either the players or DM picked to be effective for a character makes a big differences.
3) party-level optimization, especially around tactics. The differences I've seen between my "coordinated" parties and my non-coordinated ones is huge.
4) lesser degree--cherry picking powerful spells.

[da newt]

"3) party-level optimization, especially around tactics. The differences I've seen between my "coordinated" parties and my non-coordinated ones is huge."

I just wanted to point out how significant the above is. A table of tactically efficient Players with well built PCs with all of the current material available to them (including a couple of key magic items) is an absolute force to be reckoned with. Individual Player skill and good Team / Party coordination makes a HUGE difference.

I DM a bunch of AL, and a group of savvy Players cake walk the published mods even using the 'very strong' suggestions. A group of less savvy Players (even with OP builds) is much easier to challenge.

Know your audience and adjust as needed.

[Bosh]

I had that problem. Then I started throwing 4th Ed monsters at my party without modification (other than updating saving throws and attacks that asked for a save). My players were bewildered why things had ACs in the upper 20s and strange resistances. They still won, but it took a long time and they had to be far more tactically minded; generating advantage, forcing disadvantage, etc.

I did tone down their abilities, modifying the monsters closer to 5E standards, but with still fun and unique abilities my players hadn't encountered before. It was fun for me, mostly fun for them (one guy's dice hated him - never rolling above a 10, which made it very hard for him to hit anything) - but he was a Twilight Cleric so I had no sympathy (and he kept the team alive and well even if his Guiding Bolts always did squat.)

Do I recommend? Not really. But I do recommend stealing some of the powers of those critters, just for something new for your players to deal with. Just tone them to appropriate levels.

Heh, I did just the opposite and threw 0e and B/X monsters as my PCs without updating their stats any more than absolutely necessary. For a small party (just 2-3 PCs) it worked surprisingly well. The fights were LIGHTNING fast due to 5e PCs being able to cut through 0e monsters like a hot knife through butter (especially with me using morale rules) but that didn't make the overall adventures easy for the PCs as their few numbers and the HUGE amount of fights I could pack into a single session really did a good job of wearing them down. Also, despite having few HPs 0e etc. monsters can often pack a real punch so the PCs didn't come out of their fights unscathed and many sessions ended with the PCs fleeing in panic being chased by a pack of monsters (in 0e spirit I gave not a single **** about CR).

Gave the campaign a good feeling, we only had one PC death (it's hard to kill 5e PCs) but the PCs FELT constantly in danger and had to figure out ways to escape after getting in over their heads a few times and often only won fights due to their hireling backup. Was a good balance of feeling heroic (5e PCs hit like trucks vs. 0e monsters) without feeling invincible.

Transitioning back to a published 5e adventure made a lot of the fights feel like slogs afterwards as soooooooo many 5e monsters are big dumb bags of endless HPs.

Would rather have either 4e or Old School monsters over 5e ones. Their design is just so bland and it can take a long time to kill them which really makes them outstay their welcome. Updating monster stats isn't something we've heard much from with 5.5e (or whatever it's called) and I worry we'll just get more big dumb sacks of HPs with more PCs abilities that can get used in bonus actions/reactions/or just for free on top of other action making chipping away at the big dumb sacks of HPs take even LONGER in real time.

[Doug Lampert]

Why do PC's need 3 death saving throw failures to die, when team bad guy goes to insta death at 0 hp?
- How hard is it for a PC to fail 3 death saves? It's a 45% to fail any one roll, you need to be at 0 hp at the start of your turn to make each roll, you need 3 fails before you get 3 passes (or one nat 20), and any healing or stabilization stops this process. Someone clever can do the math, but even if nobody heals a downed PC their chances of 3 fails before 3 passes or a nat 20 has got to be like 25%.

Math geek alert! It's actually a 36.45% chance of dying if no one heals you.

Your chance to die in exactly three rounds is .45^3.

Your chance to die in exactly four rounds is .45 times the chance of 2 failures and 1 non-twenty success in the first 3 rounds. This is .45^3*.5*3 (.45^3 for three failures, .5 for one non-20 success, 3 for the three orders that have one success in the first 3 rolls).

Your chance to die in exactly five rounds is .45 times the chance of 2 failures and 2 non-twenty successes in the first 4 rounds. This is .45^3*.5^2*6 (.45^3 for three failures, .5^2 for two non-20 success, 6 for the six orders in which you could have 2 failures and 2 successes prior to the round 5 roll.

You can't die in six or more rounds, as by 5 rounds you have to have either succeeded at least 3 times or failed at least 3 times.

So we can simply add those up: .45^3*(1+1.5+1.5)=36.45%
Edited to add: The reason I can just add is that the chances above are the chances of dying in EXACTLY 3, 4, or 5 rounds, there's no overlap because you can only die at one exact time, and nothing is missed because if you die due to failed death saves it takes 3-5 rounds to do it.

And now you know. It's actually not that unlikely to die if no one helps you, but it takes 3-5 rounds, and the rest of the party is going to be trying to help you (especially if you get to two failed saves). Seriously, how many battles last 5 rounds and are tight enough that no one can spare any healing for the down guy? Much less battles that last 5 more additional rounds after someone goes down? And taking off even just the 5 round deaths drops the chance of death to 22.78125% (sum of 3 and 4 round death chances).

[Silly Name]

To answer the original question, I would say it's because 5e fundamentally doesn't want to provide lethal opposition to the PCs, and so their victory is a foregone conclusion unless the DM goes out of their way to create a truly deadly (lower-case d) encounter, as opposed to 5e's Deadly meaning "could be lethal for one or more player characters."

There are two exceptions to this baseline:

At very low levels (1-3), luck and low hit points total can easily make even a very simple encounter swing towards lethal very quickly.

When facing "storyline bosses", PCs are more likely to encounter defeat, especially if the DM follows the general guideline for an adventuring day and has had encounters prior to the big bossfight.

But, in general, 5e PCs are very resistant and can dish out a lot of damage against level-appropriate enemies. And a lot of MM enemies are really fragile if you run them with zero modifications: an Archmage is a CR 12 enemy with 99 HP and AC 15 at best. Four sword-and-board Champion Fighters with Dueling fighting style and a +1 sword each (37 DPR each on average) can kill him dead in just one round, and they're basically the least optimised thing you can play.

So, yes, 5e PCs are very powerful, even more than in 3.5 (when compared to what they're expected to fight, ofc), and this is by design.

[Eldariel]

Edited to add: The reason I can just add is that the chances above are the chances of dying in EXACTLY 3, 4, or 5 rounds, there's no overlap because you can only die at one exact time, and nothing is missed because if you die due to failed death saves it takes 3-5 rounds to do it.

Well, you can also die in two rounds if one of those is a natural 1.

So you'd have to adjust this a bit:
.4 is the chance of a non-critical fail
.05 is the chance of a critical fail
.5 is the chance of a non-critical success
.05 is the chance of a critical success

So with every roll, we have a .05 chance that the sequence simply ends; the character stabilizes and stands up. Then we have a .4 chance of a failure, .05 chance of two failures, and .5 chance of a non-failure. Simple binomial distribution is not quite sufficient due to dependent events.

[Blatant Beast]

Not really. Volo's are a bit tougher in a lot of cases. .
Most of the Setting Books, like Ravinica, Wildemont, and Eberron include some very tough cookies, (monsterwise), as well.



Well, you can also die in two rounds if one of those is a natural 1.

So you'd have to adjust this a bit:
.4 is the chance of a non-critical fail
.05 is the chance of a critical fail
.5 is the chance of a non-critical success
.05 is the chance of a critical success

So with every roll, we have a .05 chance that the sequence simply ends; the character stabilizes and stands up. Then we have a .4 chance of a failure, .05 chance of two failures, and .5 chance of a non-failure. Simple binomial distribution is not quite sufficient due to dependent events.

In addition to the above, I also think people commonly forget that any attack on a unconscious PC from within 5' is an Automatic Critical Hit, and counts as two Death Saves.

5e needs Yo-Yo healing, because if a PC falls to zero hit points in melee, they are probably Fully Dead, (not just mostly dead), without it.

Creatures with Legendary Action, such as Vampires can absolutely reap the fallen if an Adventuring Party does not quickly heal their fallen teammate(s) up to a safe level of Hit Points, as Vampire Legendary Actions either are bringing them closer to the stricken Adventurer, or Attacking the stricken Adventurer......(and if it is Strahd, there is even more).

Legendary Actions are very good at ending PCs lives, and a lot of DM's I have played with simply are not stepping on knecks when PCs go down. The flip side is if you synergize your encounter too well as a DM, then you curb stomp or it just boils down to whom wins Initiative.

[KorvinStarmast]

For player options, I basically agree. I mean, there are some nice QoL features added later. But mostly not.
------ Not sure how I feel about the Watcher paladin oath now that I've played one. And Tsun did Glory. I don't think it was OP, but I leaned into maxing Charisma on purpose. That boosted the save aura and the initiative bonus more than someone who was more STR/CON oriented that I was. (I have a personal obsession with my spells not being saved against, so my Cha boost is something I was going to do).

In general, the Tasha PC sub classes are a case of power creep. I am adapting a fathomless warlock into my Salt Marsh campaign (as an NPC warlock from Volo's) and of course I have the genie in your campaign 3 since I've wanted to play one since that sub class came out.
But yes, they are a bit stronger than PHB warlocks.


1) multiclassing and other character-level optimization. While "stock" characters have a much higher floor than in previous editions, there's still a significant delta between floor and ceiling. Especially when variant options (feats and multiclassing specifically) are on the board and players are thinking in mechanical terms.
I like feats more than I do multiclassing. I really dislike what I see D&Done doing with feats in terms of gating them behind level. :smallfurious:

3) party-level optimization, especially around tactics. The differences I've seen between my "coordinated" parties and my non-coordinated ones is huge.
Yes. It's the archer, not the arrow.

4) lesser degree--cherry picking powerful spells.Guilty as charged, your honor. :smallsmile:

I DM a bunch of AL, and a group of savvy Players cake walk the published mods even using the 'very strong' suggestions. A group of less savvy Players (even with OP builds) is much easier to challenge.

Know your audience and adjust as needed. +1 There is no generic group of players.

chipping away at the big dumb sacks of HPs take even LONGER in real time. Yes.

Math geek alert! It's actually a 36.45% chance of dying if no one heals you. Your chance to die in exactly three rounds is .45^3.
{snip} You can't die in six or more rounds, as by 5 rounds you have to have either succeeded at least 3 times or failed at least 3 times. Thank you, Doug. :smallsmile:

There are two exceptions to this baseline:

At very low levels (1-3), luck and low hit points total can easily make even a very simple encounter swing towards lethal very quickly.
Yes.


When facing "storyline bosses", PCs are more likely to encounter defeat, especially if the DM follows the general guideline for an adventuring day and has had encounters prior to the big bossfight. true.
.
And a lot of MM enemies are really fragile if you run them with zero modifications: an Archmage is a CR 12 enemy with 99 HP and AC 15 at best. Four sword-and-board Champion Fighters with Dueling fighting style and a +1 sword each (37 DPR each on average) can kill him dead in just one round, and they're basically the least optimised thing you can play.
Well, he does have shield, and he gets to use a reaction from the first attack ... so his AC turns into 20 quickly.

[Blatant Beast]

PC Power Creep-wise, Temporary Hit Points is a game aspect that has really taken off.
Inspiring Leader was a nice bit of tech in the PHB, and spells like False Life and Armor of Agathys are nice, but have a more stringent and limited duration than most THP.

Then XGE adds a bunch of THP generators, and then finally TCoE adds in even more THP.

Artillerist's change the game with their Eldritch Cannon, and Twilight Clerics are just WIN MORE!!!!

[Silly Name]

Well, he does have shield, and he gets to use a reaction from the first attack ... so his AC turns into 20 quickly.

Ah, true! But still, all you need is to exchange one Fighter with a caster that can Counterspell the Shield, and our little Archmage goes down fast anyways (assuming he loses the Counterspell War, ofc).

In any case, my point was less "how fast can you kill an Archmage with a very unoptimised party", and more "Monster Manual enemies are designed to not be too dangerous and go down easy". Another example can be found in the spell lists' of most MM casters: they're very clearly written to not include the really busted spells that could quickly end an encounter (the Lich has Finger of Death and PW: Kill, which are very scary but aren't quite encounter-ending if fought at level 20).

This intentional fragility is why it's common advice to never run solo boss monsters, after all: an individual monster will usually die pretty fast is a level-appropriate party focuses fire on them, so having minions getting in the way extends the fight and allows the "boss" to show off. And then once the meat wall has been cut down, the PCs can close the gap and kill the villain fast.

[Yakk]

CR X monster is very roughly on-par with a CR2X+1 unoptimized, no magic gear PC.
CR 1/8: L 0
CR 1/4: L 1
CR 1/2: L 2
CR 1: L3
CR 2: L5
CR 5: L11
CR 8: L17
CR 10: L21

Power scales *very roughly* with (Level+1) added up.

A good piece of uncommon gear is worth +0.5 levels, a good rare gear is +1, very rare +1.5 and legendary +2.

So a party of 5 level 5 PCs, each with a good rare and good uncommon item, has 37.5 units of power. (A good item is like a naked +X weapon/armor/etc, or better)

A single CR 18 (!) monster (level 37) is roughly what you need to challenge them.

Of course, tuning to that level of challenge is likely going to kill PCs. If you want a single fight to challenge full-resource PCs, then the only possible outcome of note is "a PC is killed" or "no PCs are killed". Anything short of that is fully recovered in the next fight.

To avoid that, you need to embrace attrition mechanics.

This means that fights are not individually challenging. Instead, there is a sequence of fights, with an opportunity to turn around and flee between them. Each of these fights has telegraphed level of challenge - the PCs should know how tough the fight they are risking is going in through in-world knowledge. (PCs should be frightened of any fight where they lack this knowledge!)

Then the puzzle facing the PCs is "when do we give up". Some goal, ideally layered, lies behind all of these fights. (You should be killing monsters for a reason, not just grinding XP). A layered goal means that partial success is a thing.

If you are trying to save villagers from a cultist invasion, the purpose of the fights might be to scout and/or clear a path for the villagers to flee down. The villagers might be scattered in a few safe spots in town. So each set of fights means another set of villagers escapes the (overwealming in total power) cultists. Eventually the PCs will be worn down by fighting these cultists and decide to take a rest - doing so means that some villagers hiding get discovered and killed (or converted into monsters in a fate worth than death).

Each fight
a) Runs the risk of an alarm being raised, increasing the difficulty
b) Consumes resources that make running out of steam and needing a rest more likely
c) Saves some villagers

Now the fight itself naturally has levels of success, because the only goal isn't "kill the cultists" - you are fighting them as they are in the way of a goal you have, not as XP sources. Do you alpha-strike and kill every cultist? That costs you spell slots. Do you whittle them away? Risks the alarm.

Even an encounter with a lone cultist, way below the PCs challenge, could consume resources (level 1 sleep spell). Or be solved by the assassin rogue shooting a single arrow (great for the assassin!).

This does not, however, provide an illusion of nail-biting for each set piece combat you produce.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ah, true! But still, all you need is to exchange one Fighter with a caster that can Counterspell the Shield, and our little Archmage goes down fast anyways (assuming he loses the Counterspell War, ofc).

In any case, my point was less "how fast can you kill an Archmage with a very unoptimised party", and more "Monster Manual enemies are designed to not be too dangerous and go down easy". We had a thread on how to play an Archmage within the last few months, it was a fun one.

As to not too dangerous, when the party has no magic weapons, the noncorporeal monsters get to be a royal pain in the butt, as to lycanthropes.

[Skrum]

Most of the Setting Books, like Ravinica, Wildemont, and Eberron include some very tough cookies, (monsterwise), as well.




In addition to the above, I also think people commonly forget that any attack on a unconscious PC from within 5' is an Automatic Critical Hit, and counts as two Death Saves.

5e needs Yo-Yo healing, because if a PC falls to zero hit points in melee, they are probably Fully Dead, (not just mostly dead), without it.
.

Is this true though? People I play with give this same reason, but the thing is, 3e did not have this. There was no "at 0" buffer either. If you took 15 damage when you were at 5, that's it. You died.

And characters died when we were playing 3e, but it wasn't a super common thing.

IMO, 5e creates the conditions for "needing" yoyo healing because characters aren't even at risk *until they're at 0.* In 3e, it was scary just being at less than 20. In 5e, being at low hit points barely means anything.

[Theodoxus]

Is this true though? People I play with give this same reason, but the thing is, 3e did not have this. There was no "at 0" buffer either. If you took 15 damage when you were at 5, that's it. You died.

And characters died when we were playing 3e, but it wasn't a super common thing.

IMO, 5e creates the conditions for "needing" yoyo healing because characters aren't even at risk *until they're at 0.* In 3e, it was scary just being at less than 20. In 5e, being at low hit points barely means anything.

I like Bloodied. I wish 5E had bloodied natively...

Of course, as the DM, you always have the option to do away with death saves. I ran a campaign with 0 was dead. The players ended up over cautious, but I liked it that way (I'm loathe to run combat in general... I prefer storytelling over deciding who lives and who dies on the roll of a die...) Watching the players do all they could to avoid combat was far more entertaining. I do get that D&D is definitely not the best engine to run a game like that, but it's what the players knew and had access to.

[Trask]

I like Bloodied. I wish 5E had bloodied natively...

Of course, as the DM, you always have the option to do away with death saves. I ran a campaign with 0 was dead. The players ended up over cautious, but I liked it that way (I'm loathe to run combat in general... I prefer storytelling over deciding who lives and who dies on the roll of a die...) Watching the players do all they could to avoid combat was far more entertaining. I do get that D&D is definitely not the best engine to run a game like that, but it's what the players knew and had access to.

That's very interesting, I've theorized such a rule in my own games but never run it, and I think its rare to find a DM that has. I also think D&D is not a terrible game for a playstyle like that because of its detailed combat system and resilient characters. Much like there are extensive rules for fouls in basketball, if that analogy makes sense.

I'm curious how it worked out for you, what kind of encounters run when you did run combat? Was there high player death, or just a different approach to combat?

I've personally mused that if death was at 0 HP, I could run book standard "easy" encounters and still achieve the sense of danger and tension I'm looking for without having to rewrite much.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I find my players take going to 0 as a BAD THING and don't engage in yo-yo healing already, without any changes. They proactively try to avoid going to 0, including healing, using defensive measures, and other "suboptimal" behaviors (relative to pure mechanical logic). Because their characters don't want to go down or die. Because that's traumatic. But then I've got players who are very involved in the narrative side already.

I also had a fight with a beholder last night as a player under what could have been optimal conditions--we were totally rested, no resources, plus 6 of us. But we were fighting on a boat in a swamp (10' deep water), and only one of us had a real ranged attack (the ranger). There, the threat of death was very real--I got outright killed by the death ray from near-full hp (max 52, was at 42/52, took 49 damage in a single hit, with the "if you go to 0, you die" rider). Got revivified. But the cleric got dusted (took 69 damage from the disintegration ray, max HP was only like 70 and she'd been hit). We survived, but none of us were above ~15 HP. Did it feel tense? Not really--it felt random. No tactics, really, no way to "play differently". Just most of us locked out of anything meaningful either by the antimagic cone + the inability to move well or the fact that it's floating so the fighter and rogue were gimped (fighter couldn't get in melee, so the rogue couldn't really get sneak attack well with no where to hide). I resorted to spamming fireball on a single target because it was the only semi-useful thing I had[1]. The cleric did ~0, the artificer did like 20 damage with a lighting bolt. The ranger did ~100 damage.

So IMO, "you die at 0" just tends to make things more swingy and less fun. But I don't have the pathologies at my tables that some others do with yo-yo healing. And my parties treat fights that I know were easy as much more tense. The only issues I have are around dominating strategies that change how encounters have to be built--specifically stunning strike and similar hard control. It becomes "ok, stun the big guy and then we win". Or fail to stun and then the monk isn't nearly as useful. But that's a problem with hard control specifically.

I have reintroduced the "bloody" pseudo-condition, and my WIP is actually starting to hang monster abilities on it. Things like "this monster does extra damage against bloodied targets" or "as a reaction when first bloodied, ..."

[1] I mostly have control/buff stuff that the antimagic cone negates.

[Theodoxus]

That's very interesting, I've theorized such a rule in my own games but never run it, and I think its rare to find a DM that has. I also think D&D is not a terrible game for a playstyle like that because of its detailed combat system and resilient characters. Much like there are extensive rules for fouls in basketball, if that analogy makes sense.

I'm curious how it worked out for you, what kind of encounters run when you did run combat? Was there high player death, or just a different approach to combat?

I've personally mused that if death was at 0 HP, I could run book standard "easy" encounters and still achieve the sense of danger and tension I'm looking for without having to rewrite much.

I tried to make it pretty obvious which encounters were going to be combat and which weren't - generally via sheer numbers (if the party encountered only a few creatures in their way, they knew they were pretty safe in engaging them - or if they weren't supposed to, that there was an obvious escape plan. When they saw a large field full of meandering undead, they knew it was a trap and avoided it - despite having decent AOE that could have mopped them up.

The campaign itself was centered around the rise of a new goddess of death/evil and how to ultimately foil her machinations. It was a lot of palace intrigue and clue finding.

[Witty Username]

@PhoenixPhyre
Oof, sounds rough.
What was that at, 9th level ish?

Beholder is probably a bad one for that in terms of feeling random with how the eye rays work.

That does get into a thing, my table tends to have a strong preference for having ranged options (not ranged characters so much, but having secondary ranged options at least).

[Tawmis]

<snip>
But it just got me thinking. How the heck are the PCs so powerful.
<snip>


Here's the thing. PCs are so powerful because they have quite a few abilities as you noted. And generally speaking, they're outnumbering the encounter you have planned. Which allows the PCs to essentially focus fire (whether to down the biggest threat in the room or take down the easy ones then go for the biggest threat).

Faerie Fire alone can be a game changer - in either direction. If the characters have it - and land it - the fight's going to go quick. If the enemy has it, and lands it, they can drill down the party pretty quick. My players quickly learned to fear Driders for this reason (and with wall climbing and staying out of the way of melee tanks) all the while firing arrows at glowing party members.

So there's a few things you can do - some might call it "cheating" - I call it creating a memorable encounter.

You can fluff the monster's HP upward. Or even, if the party exceeds the monster's HP pool, wait for a dramatic moment for the party to kill the beast. (A natural 20? When the party's feeling hurt, and suddenly one lands the killing blow!) You get the idea.

Also, give the monsters abilities that aren't native to the Monster Manual (or whichever book). Because the creature stats are the "base" of what the monsters are. There's going to be exceptional (and weaker) versions of the monsters out there - some of which possess far greater powers than the standard monster.

Doing this will also surprise players who may be familiar with the monster(s) because of player experience (or maybe DM experience).

[Tawmis]

And now you know. It's actually not that unlikely to die if no one helps you, but it takes 3-5 rounds, and the rest of the party is going to be trying to help you (especially if you get to two failed saves). Seriously, how many battles last 5 rounds and are tight enough that no one can spare any healing for the down guy? Much less battles that last 5 more additional rounds after someone goes down? And taking off even just the 5 round deaths drops the chance of death to 22.78125% (sum of 3 and 4 round death chances).

Keep in mind, any damage a fallen character (doing Death Saves) counts as another failure.
Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.
So a hero goes down - bad guy casts Fireball - downed hero auto fails the save to dodge (being down and unconscious) - and then gets an auto fail on the Death Save.
More than one enemy doing AOEs where the fallen hero is.
Death will come much quicker.

At which point the Instant Death may come in...
Instant Death
Massive damage can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.

For example, a cleric with a maximum of 12 hit points currently has 6 hit points. If she takes 18 damage from an attack, she is reduced to 0 hit points, but 12 damage remains. Because the remaining damage equals her hit point maximum, the cleric dies.


Just depends on how (evil) the DM is feeling.

Also Natural 1s count as two fails.
Rolling 1 or 20. When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures. If you roll a 20 on the d20, you regain 1 hit point

[Unoriginal]

More than one enemy doing AOEs where the fallen hero is.


Not to mention those enemies that do damages to anyone standing near them.

[Jakinbandw]

At the end of the day, it seems that there are limited default options for players to effectively handle adverse situations in gameplay. While there are a few methods, most players lack viable means to escape combat and recuperate. From observations in this thread, it appears that players in more lethal games tend to have better success due to available escape strategies. However, by default rules, the most a player can typically do is use the dash action to move 60 feet. This leads to a repetitive cycle where monsters catch up, leading to opportunity attacks, and players feeling compelled to continue the fight. This often makes fleeing an impractical choice. Given that most players are disinclined to flee and the rules don't support it as a feasible option for many characters, apart from monks and a few exceptions, it leaves combat as the only viable strategy for player characters.

Imagine a scenario where fleeing is a more viable option for both monsters and player characters (PCs). If there were specific rules making it very easy to escape combat, the dynamics of gameplay could shift significantly. Fights could become more lethal, allowing players to recognize danger and choose to escape more effectively. Currently, the pattern of fleeing 60 feet, followed by the monster catching up, results in an ineffective cycle of escape and pursuit. But in a world with well-defined rules for fleeing, this cycle would be broken. Players could strategically choose to retreat from combat without being perpetually caught, leading to a more dynamic and tactical gaming experience. This change could add an additional layer of strategy, where assessing risks and choosing when to fight or flee becomes a crucial part of gameplay.

In a world where fleeing is almost automatic, gameplay dynamics would be drastically altered. If characters are not restrained, they could easily escape, potentially taking just one opportunity attack from nearby ranged attackers. This change would greatly impact encounters, as illustrated by the example of players hunting a werewolf. In such a scenario, the werewolf's strength becomes secondary to its ability to flee. Players would need to devise strategies like setting traps or ambushes to prevent the werewolf from escaping into the night. This shift in focus from brute force to strategic planning would turn even a single werewolf into a significant challenge, not due to its combat strength, but because of its capacity to evade capture.

Similarly, for player characters, encountering formidable foes like a dragon at a low level wouldn't necessarily spell doom. Players could recognize their inability to confront such a powerful creature and choose to flee. The game master (GM) could then use this as a narrative element, introducing the dragon as part of the random encounter table. This approach acknowledges the dragon's presence in the world without forcing a direct confrontation. It adds an element of realism and caution to the game, where players must be mindful of potential dangers in their surroundings.

Overall, making fleeing an easier and more strategic option would add depth to the gameplay. It would encourage players to think creatively, plan their moves, and consider the consequences of engaging in or avoiding combat.

The current situation in 5e often presents a binary outcome in combat: either the player characters (PCs) completely win the battle or face a party wipe, with no middle ground. This black-and-white approach to combat outcomes is seen as less than ideal. It necessitates that PCs be excessively strong, as there's no effective mechanism for them to retreat or tactically withdraw from combat. Consequently, monsters tend to fight to the death, except in rare, specific circumstances.

This binary setup of 'win or party wipe' significantly impacts the game's balance and narrative flexibility. PCs need to be overpowering to avoid a total party wipe, leading to encounters that are often heavily skewed in their favor. This dynamic can reduce the sense of risk and realism in the game, as the lack of viable escape options forces every encounter to be a fight to the finish.

By introducing more nuanced options for retreat or strategic withdrawal, both for PCs and monsters, the game could achieve a more balanced and realistic approach to combat. This change would allow for a wider range of outcomes in battles, beyond just victory or total defeat. It would encourage players and game masters to think more tactically and consider alternative approaches to encounters, enhancing the overall gaming experience.

Disclaimer (this post was written using text to speach from chat gpt on my phone. I appolagize for any weirdness in how it turned out. I noticed a few added things and cut them out, but I'm at work and on my phone, so I may have missed something. This disclaimer was typed by hand.)

[Skrum]

Maybe. I've played 5e on roll20, so every fight takes place on a battlemap and even the very large ones have defined edges. Our general "house rule" is moving off the map is getting away. That works for NPCs as well as PCs. NPCs of course have a harder go of it, if the players take dedicated actions against their escape - the barb is going to grapple, the wizard is going to use Hold Person, etc. That won't stop Misty Step or Dimension Door, but even then, sometimes battles swing so hard against the NPC that they don't even get a chance to flee. It's just a curbstomping.

[stoutstien]

Maybe. I've played 5e on roll20, so every fight takes place on a battlemap and even the very large ones have defined edges. Our general "house rule" is moving off the map is getting away. That works for NPCs as well as PCs. NPCs of course have a harder go of it, if the players take dedicated actions against their escape - the barb is going to grapple, the wizard is going to use Hold Person, etc. That won't stop Misty Step or Dimension Door, but even then, sometimes battles swing so hard against the NPC that they don't even get a chance to flee. It's just a curbstomping.

Well this isn't in the rules anywhere something that I've always thought is as soon as one side is no longer willing to fight, you need to drop out of initiative/combat because it's over. At most it should just be something that you do when your turn comes around.
Imagine you were playing Pokemon but after you ran away you were stuck in the same menu where you had to select every individual action to move or interact. It's actually worse than that because each individual is sharing the menu and you wanting to run away is still taking up time even though it's not actively working towards completing the state that is locking you into the menu to begin with.


It doesn't matter if it's team here or team monster that does this. It doesn't even matter if one individual does it while the rest keep going because it more difficult to have a fight going on and then a chase on the side in the same initiative count. All it does is reinforce the concept that everything is stuck in a little boxes space unless it's not their turn and can't act and they still can leave until the enemies are defeated.

It's actually hilarious watching party Dynamics when they run into a group of foes and they start to attack but instead of standing in the ground they just take off. Do you pursue! Quick they're getting away!

[Jakinbandw]

Maybe. I've played 5e on roll20, so every fight takes place on a battlemap and even the very large ones have defined edges. Our general "house rule" is moving off the map is getting away. That works for NPCs as well as PCs. NPCs of course have a harder go of it, if the players take dedicated actions against their escape - the barb is going to grapple, the wizard is going to use Hold Person, etc. That won't stop Misty Step or Dimension Door, but even then, sometimes battles swing so hard against the NPC that they don't even get a chance to flee. It's just a curbstomping.

With that, you could probably throw a wider range of difficulties at the PCs (not all harder, but some much harder). My point however was that 5e doesn't have that house rule designed into it, so PCs have to be designed to be strong enough to win almost all battles as their floor. If your house rule was part of the core rules, then the floor could be lower, as less experianced parties could flee from a battle and learn from their mistakes. Coming back with better tactics next time.

[Blatant Beast]

Is this true though? People I play with give this same reason, but the thing is, 3e did not have this. There was no "at 0" buffer either. If you took 15 damage when you were at 5, that's it. You died.

And characters died when we were playing 3e, but it wasn't a super common thing.

IMO, 5e creates the conditions for "needing" yoyo healing because characters aren't even at risk *until they're at 0.* In 3e, it was scary just being at less than 20. In 5e, being at low hit points barely means anything.

There is the massive damage rule option from the DMG.

I generally find the -10 Hit Point buffer to be an easier modality than Death Saves.

A comrade at -2 Hit Points, did not elicit much concern from me, in prior D&D editions, unless the DM routinely targeted downed foes. Losing -1 hit point per round from blood loss, or taking a 1d4 worth of damage from a small attack, was not likely to outright kill you.

Imagine, a small insect that falls from the ceiling onto your unconscious, dying friend, in the midst of battle in AD&D or 3e, and then bits for 1 point of damage. This is not something that is outright killing a "mostly dead" PC at -2 Hit Points.

Contrast that with 5e, where the same small insect falling onto an unconscious PC at Zero Hit Points and biting would result in the damage being two points, (as it would be doubled by the automatic critical hit), and the PC would receive two Death Saves, which would result in Death if they had failed a Death Saving Throw, previously.

[Unoriginal]

I also want to point out that, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, that 5e PCs are overall stronger because all the 5e classes are viable.

In 3.X, you could have a PC permanently or semi-permanently weaker than another just based on which class the players chose at lvl 1. Samurai (which was almost universally considered worse than most NPC classes) and Truenamer (which straight up didn't work for most of its levels) are two shinny examples of that.

Meanwhile you had powerhouses like Druids, whose animal companion alone could outpace martial classes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@PhoenixPhyre
Oof, sounds rough.
What was that at, 9th level ish?

Beholder is probably a bad one for that in terms of feeling random with how the eye rays work.

That does get into a thing, my table tends to have a strong preference for having ranged options (not ranged characters so much, but having secondary ranged options at least).

Yeah. Level 9. And yeah, the beholder is a particularly blatant example of this. But banshees, etc. act similarly.

Personally, no amount of mechanical fiddling will make people pay attention to the narrative, but players who choose to focus on the narrative and the characters' perspectives (where going to zero really is dangerous) don't have the problem at all.

But then I'm not motivated by difficulty in games at all, so "how do I make this challenging" isn't really anything for me. I worry about having interesting fights that portray the narrative (big bad enemies feel big and bad, small snivelling ones feel that way as well). The illusion of tense combats is useful, but I have no interest in meat grinders.

[Skrum]

(big bad enemies feel big and bad,

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

[Dork_Forge]

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

You should use a Rakshasa, they're known to rise up to the challenge of their rivals. Some say it's the eye of the tiger.

[Trask]

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

I encounter a similar phenomenon. In a game I'm playing in right now (Level 14), the other 3 players (more new to D&D than the DM and myself) regularly say "We never lose, its fine." in response to warnings from NPCs or potential challenges. Not in character, just at the table. IDK how that DM does it, I'd be itching to create killer encounters that would sent them running, but maybe I'm a "killer DM" for thinking that :smallwink:.

One thing to remember is...there is always resurrection magic. Do people forget about that or just not use it? The sting of character death or the balking at the challenges being "Too hard!" lose a lot of their credibility when the game is stuffed with ways to resurrect your character. I know many DMs limit the availability of resurrection but that's a different discussion, I personally do not and resurrection is pretty common IMC.

[Kane0]

My elf artificer died the session before last, we are only level 5 but thats enough for revivify. Thing is, we didn't have the diamonds.

Players, keep track of your spell components!
DMs, make spell component availability suitable to your game!

Edit: i also recall in this same game we took on an entire fort (even if it was in poor shape), we had to retreat twice but on the third attempt we managed to get to the innermost building and quell the pirates. Even then we needed to hole ourselves up for a rest halfway, and trying to get that rest was pretty stressful

[Trask]

My elf artificer died the session before last, we are only level 5 but thats enough for revivify. Thing is, we didn't have the diamonds.

Players, keep track of your spell components!
DMs, make spell component availability suitable to your game!

Out of curiosity, in your games is it possible to pay for resurrection as a service? I ask because I've always run it that way, but usually I don't find the same to be true as a player.

[Kane0]

Out of curiosity, in your games is it possible to pay for resurrection as a service? I ask because I've always run it that way, but usually I don't find the same to be true as a player.

Depends on who's DMing and what adventures they're running. For me/my world yes if youre in a heavily populaced area, less so 'out in the wilds'. Second DM, yeah its usually available with some effort; third DM you're lucky to find any friendly NPCs as competent as yourself once you hit the mid levels.

[Theodoxus]

I've always wanted to play a Zealot Barbarian for that exact reason (especially if coupled with a Life Cleric who gets Revivify as a domain spell!) I'd run headlong into trouble all day long, without a care in the world if I die (until of course, the Cleric runs out of 3rd level spells... then I'd back off the crazy, a little).

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

The smart ones try to point the party at other foes. The overconfident ones think this time will be different, or those others were just weak. And the zealots and the desperate don't see any other option as viable. And then there's the host of ones who just haven't heard about the party.

Generally, I try to reserve the "Big Bad Ones" for special occasions. A 1-20 campaign might have 3-4 of them, usually widely separated in space and/or time.

For me, answers to the questions

1) what do you do
and
2) what are the consequences of what you do (intended or otherwise)
and
3) what are you willing to sacrifice to win? (whether resources, ethics, personal goals, other people, etc)

are much more interesting and important than "did you succeed". I plan my adventures with the knowledge that the PCs will likely succeed at every significant thing they try to do. An adventure that doesn't fit that, that requires that the PCs fail and retreat (either at all or especially at specific points) is a brittle one, and I should rethink that.

But note that winning doesn't necessarily mean "good ending, no collateral consequences." For example, the party just beat up a copper dragon and stole most of his hoard. But did not kill him--they utterly and publicly humiliated him instead. Sure, that was the deal they made with a different dragon. And the copper fully and totally deserved it. But the consequences of letting him live will change things down the road for better and for worse.

I try to reserve cinematic big fights for special occasions.

[Unoriginal]

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

Why does Rocky accept to fight Apollo Creed?

Why do gunslingers try to outdraw the quickest gun in the West?

Why do the Rebels spend close to two decades opposing Darth Vader?

Why do the Gotham criminals keep doing crimes when Batman is here?

Sometime you fight because that's your greatest chance at glory. Sometime you fight because you think you have what it takes, and if you don't then someone else will do it someday.

Sometime you fight because not fighting means accepting you can't do anything about the current status quo and you can't accept that.

Now keep in mind, the person who's fighting the PCs? Perhaps they have a 74-0 record too. Perhaps they have a 100-20 one. Perhaps they have a 1000-100 one. Heck, perhaps they have a 0-74 one but since they've survived all those other times they're not going to give up now.

I agree that if a party is known as being that powerful, there is a lot of bad guys who would get desperate or mean about it.

[sithlordnergal]

So, as a DM I pride myself on being able to make encounters that leave players almost dead. We're talking super low on HP, nearly out of resources, and potentially with people having gone down during the big boss fight. Here's what I've learned:


1) Modify statblocks. Standard monster stat blocks aren't going to do much against PCs, so raise them a bit. Increase their hit bonus and save DC. I generally raise a monster's attack bonus by one or two points, and I raise their DC by one. Though I do strive for a minimum of a DC 16.


2) Modify spell lists. Most NPC spell lists are garbage. Like...why is an Archmage concentrating on Stoneskin for crying out loud? Why does it have Scrying prepared on the spell list? Why is a caster with 9th level spells using Time Stop? Toss those junk spells out, and take Meteor Swarm, Disintegrate or Chain Lightning, Blight, Hold Person, Slow. Basically, rebuild spell lists to be far more optimized and dangerous.


3) Give big monsters spell casters as a backup. You know what's deadlier than an Ancient Dragon? An Ancient Dragon with Greater Invisibility, Bless, and Regenerate. And make sure you put the casters out of sight too. I prefer to put them in places that are hard for the party to reach, that gives the casters full cover. That way the casters can safely attack the players from a distance


4) Make heavy use of special movement. You have a fly speed? Never. Land. Ever. You have the ability to phase through walls? Never end your turn outside of a wall, forcing players to ready their actions if they want to hit something.


5) Make short rests and long rests difficult. I generally run with the rule that a singe round of combat ruins a long rest. The second Initiative has been rolled, your rest is ruined. Short Resting is even easier to break. And if they like to use spells to hide themselves away, that's fine too. If they're hidden away and can't see, nothing stopping the enemies from setting a few traps. Also, if they retreat and take a long rest, the dungeon basically resets. Not 100% mind you, but those traps are no longer disarmed, and a few of the enemies are back.


which brings me to


6) Traps. Trap EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything. My players say I have an over reliance on traps, and they're right. I put traps on doors, in hallways, on furniture, and even the treasure is usually heavily trapped. I basically looked at Tomb of Annihilation and Tomb of Horrors, then said "I can add more traps", and did it. And don't do little traps either. Some trap examples from my last dungeon include:


A set of statues that trap you in the Sickening Radiance spell encased within a Wall of Force. No save to avoid it once its activated, you just need to find a way out before the Exhaustion kills you. DC 17 for the Sickening Radiance too, so don't think you can rely on passing all of your saves
A long hallway that uses Wall of Force to trap you in it, a Wall of Fire that obscures your vision in the center of the hallway and can deal damage, and a Stone Juggernaut taken directly from Tomb of Annihilation*
A hallways blocked by a Prismatic Wall with a pair of buffed Ropers on the other side. The Ropers are simply there to grab players and drag them through the Prismatic Wall, forcing them to deal with the effects of the spell**
A set of stairs that retract into a super slick slide and drop you into a pit of spikes covered in Purple Worm Poison and give you a disease. I personally like Super Tetanus from White Plume Mountain, but Filth Fever, Flesh Rot, and Slimy Doom from Contagion work as well.
A pair of traps that work in tandem. One is essentially the giant bolder from Indiana Jones, and chases the players down a hallway. At the end of the hallway is a trapdoor that drops them into an Acid pit.



*The Stone Juggernaut is a Construct that can knock a creature prone via a Slam attack. The attack itself deals 3d12+6 damage, then it can roll over you for 10d10 damage with a Dex save for half as part of its movement. I LOVE it, won't lie
**Only use Prismatic Wall if you've given the players a way to get rid of every single layer. Doesn't matter what level the party is too, Prismatic Wall is a broken spell and the only way for players to deal with it is via DM interference because no-one is going to have the things needed to break every layer.

Also, when it comes to traps, I generally rule that players can only detect them with active Investigation checks. Passive Investigation, Passive Perception, and Perception itself will not help you find any traps at all. And a player has to call out that they're looking for traps too. If they enter a hallway and don't declare they're looking for traps, I always assume they aren't looking for traps.

[Silly Name]

This is where I balk slightly. If the PC's are 74-0, have never had to run from a fight, even if each of those fights were cinematic and fun, I start to get pulled out of the narrative just a little.

They've fought and beat countless Big Bads. They have reputation. They're known killers. But this next guy, this is the guy, he's coming with something new, he's gonna succeed where the previous 74 enemies failed miserably. Except of course...he won't. 75-0.

I just stop buying it at a certain point. Why would *anyone* fight that party.

At least in my campaigns, it's the PCs who fight against the BBEG. It's the PCs that screw with the BBEG's plans, forcing a confrontation. That kind of framing can help explain why the bad guys still fight against the PCs, even if they are renowed adventurers and heroes.

That said, I have killed a few PCs in 5e, and forced a retreat a couple of times. But, funnily enough, that has been because the PCs got overconfident and tried to punch way above their weight class, resulting in dead companions and bruised egoes.

[Witty Username]

2) Modify spell lists. Most NPC spell lists are garbage. Like...why is an Archmage concentrating on Stoneskin for crying out loud? Why does it have Scrying prepared on the spell list? Why is a caster with 9th level spells using Time Stop? Toss those junk spells out, and take Meteor Swarm, Disintegrate or Chain Lightning, Blight, Hold Person, Slow. Basically, rebuild spell lists to be far more optimized and dangerous.


A thing I would focus on this is spell lists usually have no theme going out of book.

Shifting spells towards or away from combat or giving a cohesive methodology can dramatically improve the encounter.

An archmage that hurls out a 8th level summon undead then dimension doors away, vs greater invisibility into blast spam feels very different and will challenge a party in wildly different ways.

Or an Archmage NPC could be loaded with utility spells, giving them something worthwile as a ally but not a threat.

And this can be a range, a couple power spells, but mostly utility. Or a proper battlemage with hard hiting spell after spell.

[KorvinStarmast]

Out of curiosity, in your games is it possible to pay for resurrection as a service? I ask because I've always run it that way, but usually I don't find the same to be true as a player.
No. It isn't a guarantee. It's a rare and powerful bit of divine magic.

[Dark.Revenant]

If the only danger of dying is being forced to spend a few days making a new character at equal level with the party, I don't think there is much reason to increase encounter difficulty. The stakes are entirely narrative, so just lean into narrative stakes and let people play out their power fantasy.

Alternative: If the campaign ends in failure if the party were to TPK, then there are real stakes. To be honest, for many groups, this will suffice. Threaten TPK at important moments, and then for other moments refer to the previous paragraph.

-----

Most people liken "Dark Souls" to "a difficult game". I disagree. You can't actually lose a game of Dark Souls, just fail to make progress. A D&D campaign balanced like Dark Souls will, barring schedule difficulties, eventually result in player victory. I liken it to playing "combat as sport", where encounters are meant to seem difficult but actually be designed for player victory. Even if they somehow lose, they'll be able to bounce back. It sounds like your game is like this. Just lean into it using the techniques already discussed in the thread.

... but, if you want a game that's truly hard, the danger of permanent loss must be real. This requires a conversation with the players, obviously. For example, if you want death to be an actual problem, you've got to have lasting consequences for it. It could be a loss of progress in some kind of meta-narrative aspect (e.g., experience points) or an actual diegetic penalty (e.g., money), and it has to be a finite resource. For instance, if the campaign will last a fixed length of in-game time, losing experience points is a permanent and meaningful setback. If the players aren't on any kind of clock, however, it's just busywork.

[Rafaelfras]

I had a very successful case with Iymrith from storm king thunder.
My party is big, 8 players, and at the time we make it to the eye of the all father we were at level 14 and finished up at level 16.
At the time our cleric even said "oh it is just an ancient dragon, it will be no problem"
I gave her max hp full spellcasting, unlimited spells from 1-3rd level and the ability to use them as legendary actions as Hallaster and Acererak from dungeon of the mad mage and tomb of annihilation. That seal the deal.
She could use blink, mirror image, and blur for defense and fireball to attack as legendary actions. It gave her the necessary durability, but most importantly, the ability to put pressure on then. 8d6 after each becomes a heavy toll on their Hp, and for the first time they had to run away and got scared.
When she was unmasked on the storm giants dungeon they where very tense. And finally I made her ambush then while they're where in that aircraft. With almost a TPK, they had to use the blessing they got over the campaigns to survive.
When they finally faced her at the end of the campaign it felt very rewarding. So I like to tell this as a successful case on encounter design.
Put pressure on then.
Give your monsters the ability to do damage. Pile up spellcasters so you can use damage that is not dependent on AC. If they fell pressured, they will feel threatened
Also, players do a lot of damage. Monsters most often then not die before I think they will so some defense is never overdue

[sambojin]

One of the things you can do, is just add Beast abilities to "any damned monster you want". If it's good enough for a CR1/4 to CR2 Beast, it's good enough for any other monster. And it makes them a lot more !fun! to fight against.

Charges, tramples, long-range nets, trips (air prones?), poisoned weapons, super-choke-holds, mega-leaps, reach attacks, pocket sand, free disengages, faster movement, climbs, swallows, can-kill-you-to-unconsciousness, anything.

Wouldn't actually change their CR that much, but you probably should ignore that anyway. Give more things bows/ throwing weapons with these abilities too. Expect your players to roll more saves, and it does slow down combat a bit, but it's worth it. Beasts, weirdly enough, have some of the most interesting "at will" combat abilities outside of spellcasting. So add them to "everything". Adjust DC and save-types as appropriate. An illusion mind-f* "bite" as a bonus to their attack probably won't be rolling off Con. And any encounter that is "too easy", just add a couple of beasts (or something vaguely analogous to them) to it. You'd be surprised how different the thing you made, and the thing with +2-3 Giant Spiders/ Octopi/ Constrictor Snakes plays out. HP/ ability stuff it, and it's an actual encounter. Only got Ogres? Give them Giant throwing axes, that if the ogre moves 20' towards an adventurer before chucking one, it does the Elk or the Warhorse thing. Now it's scary. Take some saves, adventurers. Or damn well heal each other. This just got worrying...

[Zuras]

5e PCs are powerful because of action economy and because they are designed to take down multiple waves of enemies, and only end up in danger once their resources have been drained away.

The easiest way I have found to create extremely dangerous encounters is to give them powerful one-time abilities (like potions or scrolls) they can use if you accidentally over-powered the encounter.

I prefer to use charms, as described in the 5e DMG for this, rather than something that could be given away or sold, but in any event they often forget about it, and if you accidentally see a TPK on the way you can remind them of the blessing they got from the shrine of the Earth Mother five sessions ago.

I like this technique because it lets you do a bit of DM fudging to save your PCs without breaking any Blorb principles.

[Skrum]

These are all really good suggestions :)

I have an outline for a Diablo-inspired game that would be framed around an explicit lack of "death." I.e., death would be a simple wake up in town (though there would be a gold tax). My thought is if I didn't actually need to worry about TPKs, I can really just throw stuff at the players with total abandon, and it'd be on them to survive, run away, etc.

If I end up running this game, I'll definitely be using some of the ideas presented here

[starwolf]

Might try Sly Flourish's (Mike Shea) Lazy DM benchmark.

https://slyflourish.com/the_lazy_encounter_benchmark.html
"An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half the sum total of character levels if the characters are above 4th level"

[Kane0]

Might try Sly Flourish's (Mike Shea) Lazy DM benchmark.

https://slyflourish.com/the_lazy_encounter_benchmark.html
"An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half the sum total of character levels if the characters are above 4th level"

Largely due to extra attack and fireball, i assume.

[Skrum]

Might try Sly Flourish's (Mike Shea) Lazy DM benchmark.

https://slyflourish.com/the_lazy_encounter_benchmark.html
"An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half the sum total of character levels if the characters are above 4th level"

So a party of 4 level 5's facing a CR 10? Or a CR 7 and 3 CR 1's?

I feel like that's more of a minimum benchmark. Not that every encounter needs to threaten death, but if it's too forgone of a conclusion I'd rather not spend the time rolling for it.

[Dork_Forge]

So a party of 4 level 5's facing a CR 10? Or a CR 7 and 3 CR 1's?

I feel like that's more of a minimum benchmark. Not that every encounter needs to threaten death, but if it's too forgone of a conclusion I'd rather not spend the time rolling for it.

It obviously depends on the specifics a lot, especially with how it swings with certain PC options and player strategy, but that seems a pretty reasonable formula for the average party, though I think it would be higher than that since it says greater than.

For example, I know from experience that a Behir can be devastating against a lot of parties if the breath hits more than one PC, so looking at a 5th level party:

- They're going to have a +7 against a 17 AC (assuming no Archery or +X weapons)
- 168 HP with a +3 mod for initiative makes it unlikely the Behir drops before it can act, even more so if it leverages its +7 Stealth.
- With a +10 to hit, the Behir is likely to hit most PCs more often than not unless they are specifically built for AC in some regard.
- With roughly an average HP of 38 for a PC (d8 and +2 Con seems a fair average), the Behir is likely to drop a PC in two hits and capable of it in one.
- A Dex-orientated character would have a save mod of +7 against a DC of 16, with 12d10 on the line and no Evasion for two more levels, the breath is likely to drop, or outright kill, many/most PCs.

This is just an example of the formula at what could arguably be it's weakest, a single monster with no Legendary Actions to tilt the action economy in its favour. Actually, if you used this as a minimum benchmark for encounters in general, then I'd wager a TPK would be around the corner for the vast majority of parties.

[Skrum]

It obviously depends on the specifics a lot, especially with how it swings with certain PC options and player strategy, but that seems a pretty reasonable formula for the average party, though I think it would be higher than that since it says greater than.

For example, I know from experience that a Behir can be devastating against a lot of parties if the breath hits more than one PC, so looking at a 5th level party:

- They're going to have a +7 against a 17 AC (assuming no Archery or +X weapons)
- 168 HP with a +3 mod for initiative makes it unlikely the Behir drops before it can act, even more so if it leverages its +7 Stealth.
- With a +10 to hit, the Behir is likely to hit most PCs more often than not unless they are specifically built for AC in some regard.
- With roughly an average HP of 38 for a PC (d8 and +2 Con seems a fair average), the Behir is likely to drop a PC in two hits and capable of it in one.
- A Dex-orientated character would have a save mod of +7 against a DC of 16, with 12d10 on the line and no Evasion for two more levels, the breath is likely to drop, or outright kill, many/most PCs.

This is just an example of the formula at what could arguably be it's weakest, a single monster with no Legendary Actions to tilt the action economy in its favour. Actually, if you used this as a minimum benchmark for encounters in general, then I'd wager a TPK would be around the corner for the vast majority of parties.

Fair point; there's definitely some dangerous CR 10's that can threaten a TPK with some decent rolls.

Alternatively, there's some CR's 10 who's only chance is to win initiative and take out a PC or 2 before they can act. Lose initiative, and the monster is going to be half dead and/or controlled before it can act.

In my experience though, single monsters do extremely poorly against an entire party, unless they have very carefully considered legendary actions that can mitigate party offense. Even when I think I'm using something way above the party's head, the action econ is just so far in the player's favor that massive breath weapons and the like can't make up for it.

I've thrown a Young Brass Dragon at a party of level 4's, and the party won. There was a whole context to; the players were actually trying to rescue a princess from a tower, so they weren't even focus-firing the dragon - but the dragon took so much "incidental" damage I wonder if they would've been better of just ganging up on the dragon and removing it.

[Dork_Forge]

Fair point; there's definitely some dangerous CR 10's that can threaten a TPK with some decent rolls.

Alternatively, there's some CR's 10 who's only chance is to win initiative and take out a PC or 2 before they can act. Lose initiative, and the monster is going to be half dead and/or controlled before it can act.

In my experience though, single monsters do extremely poorly against an entire party, unless they have very carefully considered legendary actions that can mitigate party offense. Even when I think I'm using something way above the party's head, the action econ is just so far in the player's favor that massive breath weapons and the like can't make up for it.

Monster choice matters, as does party choice. The other night I TPK'd a party of 3 phat level 8s (free feat, two uncommons of their choice, any books), but it wasn't that a Dire Troll is so crazy powerful, it was player choice that ultimately failed them. Choices like the resistant Barbarian trying to keep distance whilst the softer Monk tanked, mismanagement of healing and resources throughout the one shot. I could have made that last fight substantially easier and they still would have lost based on how they were playing.


I've thrown a Young Brass Dragon and a party of level 4's, and the party won. There was a whole context to; the players were actually trying to rescue a princess from a tower, so they weren't even focus-firing the dragon - but the dragon took so much "incidental" damage I wonder if they would've been better of just ganging up on the dragon and removing it.

Well this is a bit baffling, if a Young Brass Dragon is killed by a party when they weren't really trying to do so, then that points at other things wrong with the encounter design. I mean, they're level 4s and the dragon has an AC of 17 and 110 HP with a huge mobility advantage. Heck, the breath weapon alone should have been devastating.

Is it alright to ask how this went down, the party/items, and setup? A level 4 party incidentally doing that much damage is not normal or expected.

[Skrum]

Well this is a bit baffling, if a Young Brass Dragon is killed by a party when they weren't really trying to do so, then that points at other things wrong with the encounter design. I mean, they're level 4s and the dragon has an AC of 17 and 110 HP with a huge mobility advantage. Heck, the breath weapon alone should have been devastating.

Is it alright to ask how this went down, the party/items, and setup? A level 4 party incidentally doing that much damage is not normal or expected.

The "dragon" was actually a mechanical contraption, and it was guarding a fake tower with a fake princess in it. The encounter was an arena fight event, and the players had to climb the tower, grab the princess, and bring her safely back to the start zone. The dragon wasn't necessarily there to be beaten, it was just the threat. I took away the dragon's fly speed, and didn't really play it "smart" beyond lining up as many players as possible in the breath weapon.

Encounter starts, the monk goes rushing passed the dragon to the tower. The other three, a wizard, a bladelock, and a wizard/fighter, engage the dragon.

Breath weapon puts the fear of god in 'em, but doesn't drop anyone. They start smashing. Monk ascends the tower as fast as possible. The dragon sets in with their claws, but the wizard and warlock are keeping range and the wizard/fighter has like 19 AC and shield. Not much is landing.

As the monk comes racing back out of the tower carrying the princess, the dragon gets it's breath back and Insta-Kills (massive damage) the warlock. At that point, the dragon had like 30 hit points left.

When we talked it over after, we all kinda come to the conclusion that if the monk had just stayed and attacked, they would've beaten the dragon as the monk was the best damage dealer in the party.

TBC, I wasn't playing the dragon super hard, I nerfed it's movement (no flying), and it still killed the warlock. But point is, it was intended to be this overwhelming threat that they had to move around, which they only sorta did, and they probably could've beaten it outright if they planned for it to begin with.

[Unoriginal]

These are all really good suggestions :)

I have an outline for a Diablo-inspired game that would be framed around an explicit lack of "death." I.e., death would be a simple wake up in town (though there would be a gold tax). My thought is if I didn't actually need to worry about TPKs, I can really just throw stuff at the players with total abandon, and it'd be on them to survive, run away, etc.

If I end up running this game, I'll definitely be using some of the ideas presented here

Not criticizing or anything, but "letting the PCs respawn after death is a good idea, because I fear TPKing them" makes it sound more like you consider the 5e PC not powerful enough for the challenges you'd like to use, rather than too powerful.

[tokek]

The "dragon" was actually a mechanical contraption, and it was guarding a fake tower with a fake princess in it. The encounter was an arena fight event, and the players had to climb the tower, grab the princess, and bring her safely back to the start zone. The dragon wasn't necessarily there to be beaten, it was just the threat. I took away the dragon's fly speed, and didn't really play it "smart" beyond lining up as many players as possible in the breath weapon.

Encounter starts, the monk goes rushing passed the dragon to the tower. The other three, a wizard, a bladelock, and a wizard/fighter, engage the dragon.

Breath weapon puts the fear of god in 'em, but doesn't drop anyone. They start smashing. Monk ascends the tower as fast as possible. The dragon sets in with their claws, but the wizard and warlock are keeping range and the wizard/fighter has like 19 AC and shield. Not much is landing.

As the monk comes racing back out of the tower carrying the princess, the dragon gets it's breath back and Insta-Kills (massive damage) the warlock. At that point, the dragon had like 30 hit points left.

When we talked it over after, we all kinda come to the conclusion that if the monk had just stayed and attacked, they would've beaten the dragon as the monk was the best damage dealer in the party.

TBC, I wasn't playing the dragon super hard, I nerfed it's movement (no flying), and it still killed the warlock. But point is, it was intended to be this overwhelming threat that they had to move around, which they only sorta did, and they probably could've beaten it outright if they planned for it to begin with.

So the dragon acted like a dumb brawler. It didn’t just lack flight it lacked the smarts to avoid attacking the armored tank - so the party could position any way they liked.

If you play monsters that way they need overwhelming physical advantages to last any time at all. Dragons in particular will underperform their CR badly if they just brawl against the party tank. But realistically almost all monsters will underperform when played that way.

[Skrum]

So the dragon acted like a dumb brawler. It didn’t just lack flight it lacked the smarts to avoid attacking the armored tank - so the party could position any way they liked.

If you play monsters that way they need overwhelming physical advantages to last any time at all. Dragons in particular will underperform their CR badly if they just brawl against the party tank. But realistically almost all monsters will underperform when played that way.

Granted, the ideal dragon tactic is to stay flying and just strafe the party when their breath weapon is ready. Melee characters are locked out of the fight entirely, and even many spells are of limited effectiveness.

But in this case, the party tank was a fighter 1 wizard 3 (what's that like 30 hit points?). The dragon was CR 6. The other wizard and warlock were running away and cantrip'ing. If the dragon ran after them, it would've most likely lost attacks just closing the distance. Not to say it would've been even worse, just that it wouldn't have been obviously better. And since dragons have 1) a breath weapon, and 2) melee attacks...like what should I have really done, if I wanted to maximize its tactics?

[Skrum]

Not criticizing or anything, but "letting the PCs respawn after death is a good idea, because I fear TPKing them" makes it sound more like you consider the 5e PC not powerful enough for the challenges you'd like to use, rather than too powerful.

Well I think about it like this - there's a few different types of encounters.
1) Easy challenges that feel easy.
2) Encounters that are exciting and "challenging," but short of extraordinary dice rolls (and most likely requiring repeatedly good/bad rolls), the players are all but assured of eventual victory.
3) Challenging encounters with real percentile chances (say, 5-10%) of PC failure, possibly including character death
4) Overwhelming encounters that feel overtuned and unfair

My desire is to be able to hit (3), at the very least for the boss fights but also some meaningful percentage of overall encounters. If any individual encounter is (2), it's fine; when the entire campaign is (2), it gets a little "what are we doing here."

In my experience though, because of a variety of factors discussed in this thread, the distance between (2) and (4) is almost nonexistent. Encounter type (3) is a ghost, a white whale, a phantom that doesn't really exist in the system.

So, my thought with free res game is I can really just throw literally anything at the players, and it's fine. If a combat is too hard, the players run away (or die), and then go fight something else and come back another day. The world is going to be hexcrawl style, and the players are going to have the ability to collect information to the effect of "Sawtooth lives in a cave 2 days east; he's a very tough fight. Might be better to go after the Fairy Cove; that's 1 day south." The criteria of success changes from "did the characters outright beat, probably killing, the bad guys" to "did they collect the treasure" (gold is going to be the means in which characters gain levels, buy equipment, everything. And dying will have a gold tax). I.e., I'm going to circumvent the ridiculously forgiving death rules and create an entirely new failure state.

[Unoriginal]

Granted, the ideal dragon tactic is to stay flying and just strafe the party when their breath weapon is ready. Melee characters are locked out of the fight entirely, and even many spells are of limited effectiveness.

But in this case, the party tank was a fighter 1 wizard 3 (what's that like 30 hit points?). The dragon was CR 6. The other wizard and warlock were running away and cantrip'ing. If the dragon ran after them, it would've most likely lost attacks just closing the distance. Not to say it would've been even worse, just that it wouldn't have been obviously better. And since dragons have 1) a breath weapon, and 2) melee attacks...like what should I have really done, if I wanted to maximize its tactics?

4 lvl 4 vs 1 CR 6 boss is a Deadly encounter.

That means the group is generally going to be able to fight three of those before being out of ressources, and there is *a chance* one PC dies with bad luck, risk-taking going wrong, or not well-thought PC tactical choices. Such an encounter is also generally going to last a bit more than three rounds if a straight fight.

So the dragon worked exactly as intended by the 5e devs.

That being said, since they're able to handle around 3 of those in a long rest, I can see why it would be a disappointing boss for a DM who thought the dragon would be tougher (I'm sure it was not disappointing for your players).

[PhoenixPhyre]

That being said, since they're able to handle around 3 of those in a long rest, I can see why it would be a disappointing boss for a DM who thought the dragon would be tougher (I'm sure it was not disappointing for your players).

I'm just going to focus on this for a second.

There's a huge gap, in my experience, between how difficult the DM perceives the encounter to have been and how difficult the players perceive the encounter to have been. Almost always, the DM believed the encounter was much easier than the players believed it was. A tense nail-biter from the players' perspective in the moment is often a "cakewalk" from the DM's perspective, because the DM has all the facts. And impassionate logic around probability is very different when it's not your character at stake.

Similarly, things the DM thought were tough usually are demoralizingly hopeless for the players. Where it's not skill that won, it's just pure luck.

Note that none of this talks about math or actual chances of success or failure or death or whatever. Math...really doesn't matter for this. Perception is what matters. And I'd argue that it's the players' perception that really matters. If they think it was difficult...it was. Even if on sober reflection they could have taken it or it wasn't as difficult as they believed (due to information they didn't have, etc).

This, I think, is what 5e is going for and acknowledging (without, you know, actually closing the loop and telling the DM that). It's designed so that, run normally, the chances of an unexpected TPK are just about nil, and the chances of an outright unavoidable character death are small. The PCs are supposed to survive almost every fight. Not necessarily win, because many fights are about more than just "you and him fight until one is dead." Or they're supposed to be. Difficulty is mostly supposed to be perceived, not actual. This isn't a Souls-like, where Git Gud (replaying things over and over and memorizing attack patterns) is an option.

---------

As for what makes the game perversely easier than intended, I'd say that in my experience, evasion-based defenses (ie things that make you not take any damage, rather than damage mitigation/restoration) such as high AC can, if taken too far, end up creating a perverse problem. You load more and more and more into the attack roll, since to hit such a character more often than 1/20 (or 1/400 with disadvantage from blur, etc), you have to jack the attack bonus up. But that comes along with jacking the damage up, which means that you get the infamous "whiff whiff whiff splat" rocket tag effect. Except from only one side. So anything that hits is likely to take a huge chunk, if not all, of the PC's health...but only a few hit, and there's little control over that. On average, it balances out. But the in-play dynamic is really bad and frustrating for both sides. But it's a two-sided game--once you're in that perverse case, both sides have to agree to back down together. If the PCs unilaterally disarm (dis-shield?), they get squished by encounters designed to hit the stupid-high ACs. If the DM unilaterally disarms, encounters literally pose no challenge. So they have to agree OOC to back out.

Now, it's true that the game is at fault somewhat for allowing this to happen. For allowing a bunch of different ways to stack your AC to the ceiling and not recognizing that evasion-based defenses are perverse and non-linear. It's one big reason I'm moving my WIP toward removing all ways to stack your AC other than a single, universal (for the PCs), costly[1] shield analogue. While you can still get advantage/disadvantage, those don't stack either. While also refactoring monsters to drop their attack bonuses and giving PCs more ways to mitigate damage directly, as well as making healing better. The point being is that I believe that HP should be the primary mitigation. That way there's more than just the binary "fine" and "down" states.

[1] requires expending a resource that either (a) is in short supply (for full casters) or (b) is used for your other abilities (for martials) or (c) some hybrid of the two (for half-casters).

[da newt]

"And since dragons have 1) a breath weapon, and 2) melee attacks...like what should I have really done, if I wanted to maximize its tactics?"

Depending on the DM's goal for this encounter strategies will change. (we'll assume your goal is to kill as many PCs as possible before it is destroyed, but it has no survival instinct at all)

Generally speaking the dragon construct's first priority is to position itself to hit at least 2 PCs with its fire breath weapon (and it has stealth proff so it should try to sneak attack first round) - if it can't hit 2 or more PCs then it will move to the easiest to hit PC and attack w/ 3 melee strikes. (I believe they should be allowed to grapple in lieu of a strike just like a PC, but that's a ruling not RAW). It will focus fire on one squishy PC until they are down and out. With a 40 move speed it should be able to get around better than most PCs and a single opp att won't keep it from moving to a more advantageous position.

A brass dragon is smarter than the average PC so it will do all it can to limit the number of PCs that can attack it at once. It has a burrow speed and blindsight - so it should be underground at the end of it's turn (you said yours couldn't fly, right?) which will make it harder to target. It will try to make this a 1v1 fight instead of a 4 v 1.

It's AC is pretty good and it has decent saves and fire immunity and 110 hp - it should have ample opportunity to cause problems and recharge it's breath weapon.

[Dork_Forge]

The "dragon" was actually a mechanical contraption, and it was guarding a fake tower with a fake princess in it. The encounter was an arena fight event, and the players had to climb the tower, grab the princess, and bring her safely back to the start zone. The dragon wasn't necessarily there to be beaten, it was just the threat. I took away the dragon's fly speed, and didn't really play it "smart" beyond lining up as many players as possible in the breath weapon.

Encounter starts, the monk goes rushing passed the dragon to the tower. The other three, a wizard, a bladelock, and a wizard/fighter, engage the dragon.

Breath weapon puts the fear of god in 'em, but doesn't drop anyone. They start smashing. Monk ascends the tower as fast as possible. The dragon sets in with their claws, but the wizard and warlock are keeping range and the wizard/fighter has like 19 AC and shield. Not much is landing.

As the monk comes racing back out of the tower carrying the princess, the dragon gets it's breath back and Insta-Kills (massive damage) the warlock. At that point, the dragon had like 30 hit points left.

When we talked it over after, we all kinda come to the conclusion that if the monk had just stayed and attacked, they would've beaten the dragon as the monk was the best damage dealer in the party.

TBC, I wasn't playing the dragon super hard, I nerfed it's movement (no flying), and it still killed the warlock. But point is, it was intended to be this overwhelming threat that they had to move around, which they only sorta did, and they probably could've beaten it outright if they planned for it to begin with.


Granted, the ideal dragon tactic is to stay flying and just strafe the party when their breath weapon is ready. Melee characters are locked out of the fight entirely, and even many spells are of limited effectiveness.

But in this case, the party tank was a fighter 1 wizard 3 (what's that like 30 hit points?). The dragon was CR 6. The other wizard and warlock were running away and cantrip'ing. If the dragon ran after them, it would've most likely lost attacks just closing the distance. Not to say it would've been even worse, just that it wouldn't have been obviously better. And since dragons have 1) a breath weapon, and 2) melee attacks...like what should I have really done, if I wanted to maximize its tactics?

So, to be clear, the encounter is rated deadly and did actually kill a PC despite the monster being nerfed, that seems pretty on point?

But otherwise, you greatly gimped the dragon with tactics and removing the fly speed. The latter isn't just about verticality, it's about distance, you expressed concern that the dragon would lose attacks closing on the Warlock and Wizard (I'm assuming it was still faster at 40', but the starting gap was likely greater than 15'), but the dragon's intended 80ft fly would likely have closed on them in a single round (two at most, with the breath weapon still allowing turn 1 damage).

You essentially let the PCs kite the dragon whilst focusing on a high AC target, and I can only assume you got unlucky with rolls since a +7 should still handily hit a medium armor+shield+Shield PC on occasion in a longer combat.

One thing that really interests me though, how were the PCs doing damage? The Monk is out of it, the Warlock and Wizard were throwing cantrips (with Firebolt out of the equation) and the Fighter/Wizard probably isn't doing much with how they're built.

So how many rounds did this take for them to do 80 damage to it?

But yeah, the encounter seems like it worked, and if you hadn't removed the fly speed/played it more tactically for a +1 Int creature, then it likely would have felt very intimidating.

[Skrum]

OK I feel like I'm losing control of what point I was trying to make

The point of the encounter wasn't for the players to fight a dragon to the death. The point was to use a recognizable, iconic monster and have the players fight it in a controlled environment (an arena). Further, the win conditions for the encounter weren't to down the dragon, it was to rescue the princess (a literal paid actor who refused to take her heels off to run faster).

When I was designing this encounter, I wanted an opponent that would be so overwhelmingly powerful that it would be clear that the players weren't expected to beat it. There was ample cover to take advantage of, there was numerous clues as to the nature of the breath weapon (a 40' line); all things to assist the players in working around the dragon, get to the top of the tower, and rescue the princess.

And overall, it more or less worked. Basic tactics, 3 characters distracted the dragon while the 4th with the fastest movement went to get the princess. I only brought this up to express my surprise that despite me intending this to be an overwhelming enemy, the players actually got rather close to just beating it - yes I was using less than optimal tactics, but so were the players! They too didn't think they'd beat it, they were just fighting to stay alive and give the monk time.

As for what they did specifically, I don't remember. The gish wizard had a melee weapon, the warlock was using EB + AB, and the other wizard I don't remember. But they chip-damaged it quite a bit. The warlock died in an entirely preventable way - they were at super low hit points, and the player wasn't paying attention to range and stayed within the 40' of the breath weapon. Dragon got it back, blasted, and rolled high enough to inflict massive damage. She could've been further away, she could've used cover, etc. But didn't.

[KorvinStarmast]

For example, I know from experience that a Behir can be devastating against a lot of parties if the breath hits more than one PC, so looking at a 5th level party:

- They're going to have a +7 against a 17 AC (assuming no Archery or +X weapons)
- 168 HP with a +3 mod for initiative makes it unlikely the Behir drops before it can act, even more so if it leverages its +7 Stealth.
- With a +10 to hit, the Behir is likely to hit most PCs more often than not unless they are specifically built for AC in some regard.
- With roughly an average HP of 38 for a PC (d8 and +2 Con seems a fair average), the Behir is likely to drop a PC in two hits and capable of it in one.
- A Dex-orientated character would have a save mod of +7 against a DC of 16, with 12d10 on the line and no Evasion for two more levels, the breath is likely to drop, or outright kill, many/most PCs.

This is just an example of the formula at what could arguably be it's weakest, a single monster with no Legendary Actions to tilt the action economy in its favour. Actually, if you used this as a minimum benchmark for encounters in general, then I'd wager a TPK would be around the corner for the vast majority of parties. If you play the behir as an ambush attacker, underground, in twisty turny caverns, it can be a nasty encounter for PCs at levels higher than 5. :smallcool:

4 lvl 4 vs 1 CR 6 boss is a Deadly encounter.

That means the group is generally going to be able to fight three of those before being out of ressources, and there is *a chance* one PC dies with bad luck, risk-taking going wrong, or not well-thought PC tactical choices. Such an encounter is also generally going to last a bit more than three rounds if a straight fight.

So the dragon worked exactly as intended by the 5e devs. Agree.

There's a huge gap, in my experience, between how difficult the DM perceives the encounter to have been and how difficult the players perceive the encounter to have been.
{snip}
This, I think, is what 5e is going for and acknowledging (without, you know, actually closing the loop and telling the DM that). It's designed so that, run normally, the chances of an unexpected TPK are just about nil, and the chances of an outright unavoidable character death are small. The PCs are supposed to survive almost every fight. Not necessarily win, because many fights are about more than just "you and him fight until one is dead." Or they're supposed to be. Difficulty is mostly supposed to be perceived, not actual. hard to disagree with this.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

I'm a very experienced DM, and even after planning hundreds of encounters, I still feel like I don't quite have a bead on encounter difficulty - and I *always* miss in one direction. The PC's roflstomp my beautiful encounter that I spent significant time on.

Obviously, after awhile, I caught on the fact that I was always underestimating them, and started scaling up. But still. I miss low quite often, despite throwing some mean stuff. At least, yah know, what I think is mean stuff.

But it just got me thinking. How the heck are the PCs so powerful.

Some general observations -
hit points: heavily in favor of monsters. Bosses and other tough monsters will often have 3-5x the hit points of any given PC, and the collective Monster Squad will have hundreds more hit points than the collective PC team.
armor class/defenses: PC favored. Monster AC is usually in the 15-18 range, PCs are often 20+ w/ additional reactions, resistances, etc.
damage: this one gets knotty. Damage rolls are monster-favored, but monsters also have lower attack bonuses and PC's often have nova/burst buttons of one sort or another. Effective damage is PC favored, on a per action basis
action econ: starts monster favored, but then swings towards PCs as monster after monster gets mowed down

X-factor: monsters have crazy abilities that aren't balanced around uses per day or any other consideration that governs PC abilities
X-factor: the PCs are each controlled by a human player than can optimize their own actions and decisions, while the entire Monster Squad is controlled by a single person, the DM, who is also managing the game

I've played enough to know, abstractly at least, that I can throw basically anything at all at the PCs and they will find a way to win. But in the process of planning an encounter, I almost always arrive at a point where I think "this, this is surely too much, I'll scale it back just a little." And then more often than not, the players just win. Not without fanfare, but they win and in retrospective there's no real way it could've played out any other way.

I don't remember having this problem in 3e.

3e/3.5 characters were way more powerful, when players put the tiniest amount of effort into it.

Has a wizard who had exploding runes in every language and they would only hurt specific creature types and whatever. My allies would keep the paper on them and kamikaze enemies.

Hulking Hurler could kill the moon.

Had a character that could pick up Big T and walk around. Oh Magic of Incarnum how I loved thee.

Pun Pun was a theoretical thing that no player should ever be allowed to play.

Relatively speaking 5e characters are the weakest of WotC D&D. Can you even kill gods anymore?

But the issue with 5e characters is that the CR system wasn't worked out. Don't ever trust it. 5e was rushed despite its rather good playtest length.

[Witty Username]

Relatively speaking 5e characters are the weakest of WotC D&D. Can you even kill gods anymore?


The are around a level 12 encounter now, killing gods has never been easier. Heck, If I recall correctly Auril is a CR 8 (I am away from my books).

Nerfs were across the board for 5e.

[Mindflayer_Inc]

The are around a level 12 encounter now, killing gods has never been easier. Heck, If I recall correctly Auril is a CR 8 (I am away from my books).

Nerfs were across the board for 5e.

IIRC you only ever fight aspects/avatars of deities in 5e (at least official wotc stuff). Aspects of deities (like Tiamat's) are only a fraction of their power.

In 3e/4e you could beat an actual deity down (before epic spellcasting got involved).

The big thing is that deities don't get statblocks in 5e for this reason, give something a stat block and players can kill it. Deities and Demigods from 3e has stat blocks for Bahamut, Tiamat, and a couple others iirc. Not the avatars, but the deities.

5e player characters are nerfed.

I mean, abyss, if you can't nail and enemy to the sky then are you really a strong spellcaster?

[Blatant Beast]

3e/3.5 characters were way more powerful, when players put the tiniest amount of effort into it.

This statement translates to "Spends Hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars buying and many, many hours analyzing splatbooks to combine PrC with spells and Feats for ultimate destruction".

The 3e Optimizer in me is a tad bit offended to have the effort reduced to being described as "tiny".

It did not feel like a tiny investment, back in the day.

[Trask]

This statement translates to "Spends Hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars buying and many, many hours analyzing splatbooks to combine PrC with spells and Feats for ultimate destruction".

The 3e Optimizer in me is a tad bit offended to have the effort reduced to being described as "tiny".

It did not feel like a tiny investment, back in the day.

You're right, it was way more difficult especially in the days before internet resources became common. There's a bit of nostalgia for me for the times when book diving and experimentation was part of the game. It feels as though in 3e's later life, and now, optimization boils down to outsourcing the process to an internet hivemind. That might be part of the reason why optimization became too much for DM's to handle, because its no longer an organic process of trial and error at the table.

Even the optimization process has been optimized.